Why a Big Pan of Mince Earns Its Keep

There is a certain satisfaction in a pan so full you have to stir it with two hands. A proper British bolognese — richer and more tomato-forward than its Italian cousin, and none the worse for it — is the single most useful thing you can cook on a Sunday afternoon. One kilogram of mince, a couple of tins of tomatoes and a bit of patience gives you eight to ten generous portions. That is a week's worth of suppers for two, or four nights of not having to think for a family of four.

The trick is not to treat it as one dish. Think of it as a base sauce that happens to be delicious on spaghetti, but which also sits under a mashed potato lid, gets spooned over a baked potato, or loosens into a quick soup with a splash of stock. Cook it once, eat it five ways.

What Goes In the Pan

Nothing here is expensive or hard to find. This makes roughly ten portions.

• 1kg beef mince — 10% fat or thereabouts. Anything leaner turns dry and pebbly. A 50/50 mix of beef and pork is even better if you can get it.
• 2 large onions, finely chopped
• 3 carrots and 2 sticks of celery, diced small
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tbsp tomato purée
• 2 x 400g tins chopped tomatoes
• 1 tbsp dried oregano and 2 bay leaves
• A good glug of Worcestershire sauce
• 400ml stock — beef or chicken, from a cube is fine
• A splash of milk (about 100ml), which sounds odd and works beautifully
• Salt, black pepper, a pinch of sugar

Red wine is lovely if you have a glass going spare, but don't open a bottle specially. A teaspoon of Marmite stirred in does a surprisingly similar job of adding depth.

Building the Sauce Properly

Brown the mince in batches in a large, heavy-based pan over a high heat. Crowd it and it steams rather than browns, and you lose the flavour that makes this worth the effort. Set each batch aside.

Turn the heat down to medium, add a good slug of oil, then the onions, carrots and celery. Cook for ten to twelve minutes until soft and just catching colour. Add the garlic and tomato purée and stir for a minute — the purée needs to cook out or it tastes tinny.

Return the meat, add the tinned tomatoes, stock, oregano, bay and Worcestershire sauce. Break up the tomatoes with your spoon. Bring to a bare simmer, then leave it alone for at least an hour, ideally ninety minutes, stirring occasionally and topping up with a splash of water if it looks tight. The splash of milk goes in for the last twenty minutes — it tenderises the meat and rounds off the acidity.

Season at the end, not the beginning. Taste, add salt, a pinch of sugar if the tomatoes are sharp, plenty of black pepper. It should be thick enough to hold a trench behind a wooden spoon.

Cooling and Freezing Without the Faff

This is where good intentions usually go wrong. Hot sauce in a big deep tub will sit in the danger zone for hours.

• Divide the sauce between several shallow containers — the wider and flatter, the faster it cools.
• Leave the lids off and let the steam escape for twenty minutes, then cover and refrigerate. Aim to have it in the fridge within two hours.
• For freezing, portion into bags laid flat or tubs sized to your actual meals: one portion for a solo supper, two for a couple, four for a family.
• Label with the date. It keeps well for three months; after that it is still safe but starts to taste tired.
• Defrost overnight in the fridge. Reheat in a pan or microwave until piping hot all the way through, and never reheat more than once.

Five Weeknight Suppers From One Pan

• Pasta bake: stir cooked penne through a portion, tip into a dish, cover with white sauce and grated cheddar, and bake at 200°C fan for 25 minutes.
• Jacket potatoes: microwave a potato for eight minutes, then finish it in a hot oven while the sauce reheats. Butter first, always.
• Quick spaghetti: reheat with a ladle of pasta water and a knob of butter to loosen it. Ten minutes, start to finish.
• Cottage pie: top with mashed potato — add a handful of grated cheese and a fork-scored surface — and bake until the peaks go bronze.
• On toast: reduce a portion hard with a splash of Worcestershire sauce until sticky, then pile onto thick buttered toast with a fried egg on top.

Seasonal Tweaks and Everyday Habits

The base recipe is a template. In summer, add a diced courgette with the onions and finish with torn basil. In autumn, a handful of chopped mushrooms and a grating of nutmeg. Through winter, diced swede or squash folded in for the last half hour adds sweetness and stretches the pan further. A spoonful of smoked paprika or a chopped red chilli never hurts.

Two habits make the whole thing easier. First, keep a stash of flat-frozen portions, because a flat bag thaws in a fraction of the time a brick does. Second, always cook more pasta than you need and freeze what is left — a bag of cooked penne and a tub of sauce is a supper that comes together faster than a takeaway, at a fraction of the cost, and tastes considerably better than either.