Ragu ragu!

So....bolognese sauce. Everybody's favourite, old faithful, classically lovely. So why has everybody got their own recipe? The Ragu sauce that takes its name from its origins in Bologna, Italy bears little resemblance to the slop found on some dining room tables and restaurant passes. Even so, everyone loves this old favourite and most people have a recipe that is particularly unique to them. So in the vein of everything that is Delia Smith, here is my version....

Ingredients:

500g lean beef mince (a little pork mince would be great too!)
2 tins chopped tomatoes
Glass of wine (preferably a good full-bodied Merlot or Shiraz)
4 cloves of garlic
2 small onions (or 1 large one!)
2 sticks of celery
3 smallish carrots
A whole pack of button mushrooms
2 heaped tspn's of Oregeno
A bunch of fresh basil
Worcestershire Sauce (1/5th of a bottle)
2 small chunks of dark chocolate (above 70% cocoa)
Beef stock cube
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Cooking method:

1. Chop all veg into tiny pieces, sounds laborious but adds to the rich texture!
2. In the meantime, cook your mince down in your large, heavy-bottomed saucepan with the glass of wine and half the worcester sauce. This will help infuse the flavours into the meat and not just into the sauce.
3. Remove the meat and liquid and set aside, in the same pot add a good lug of extra virgin olive oil and start to sweat the garlic and onions, leave them in for 5-7 minutes or until sweet and starting to caremalise.
4. Add the rest of the veg, oregano and chopped basil (including chopped stalks) and sweat down for 10 minutes until you have a fragrant mix of vegetables and herbs.
5. Add your mince and liquid and stir on a medium heat. Add the tomatoes and break in your stock cube and chocolate. At this point you will have the beginnings of a good rich rust coloured sauce. You may want to add 200ml of water just to give it enough consistency for the hours ahead!
6. Leave on a low heat for at least 3 hours or 5 if you have the time or the inclination to ensure the richness and the flavours are transferred from one ingrediant to the next.
7. To finish, add the remaining worcester sauce, basil leaves and a splash of the wine for good measure.
8. Serve with tagliatelle, buckets of Parmigiano Reggiano and fresh baby leaf salad.

Lovely stuff!

The Dogs, Edinburgh.

“Borderline pretentious but does itself justice!”

After booking, cancelling, rebooking and then cancelling another restaurant already for our first night in Edinburgh we hoped that our indecisiveness would eventually pay dividends as we plumped for 'The Dogs' after the interesting description in the Lonely Planet guide.

The night that we were there had that feel of a balmy midsummers evening (even tough it was the start of April!), the kind of night where you can smell the tarmac if it happens to rain. This gave 'The Dogs' it's first negative, it was so hot in there! After sitting down on a table for four (I never like this, you feel like your sat at your gran's) we were given the menu for our perousal. From first glace it looked as interesting as the guidebook and website had made out, interesting and thoughtful dishes made from sources of fish and cuts of meat that in another world would be used as bait to attract the bigger fish or smashed into pulp and used for burgers.

For starter, as my G/F and I are due to go traveling soon, we decided to share the starter of hot smoked salmon and piccalily salad. After no more than a matter of 5 minutes the starter was on our table, complete with a fantastic few wedges of crusty granary bread with hearty, salty butter. The salmon was well cooked and extremely tasty and was well-matched with the rough and ready piccalily which basically consisted of large flourets of cauliflower. For a salad dish it was a real treat and the flavours matched up perfectly.

For main my G/F opted for the Hake on smoked fish potato cake and I opted for the Coley on spring greens. I would have to say from the outset that both dishes were superb. Both pieces of fish were cooked to perfection, not easy with such brittle specimens and were seasoned well. The potato cake and mustard sauce complimented the hake admirably and although the Coley dish lacked any carbohydrates the caper dressing and mountain of greens packed underneath gave it the flavour punch it deserved.

For desert I opted for the merangue and ginger nut parfait which, despite being far too dense, tasted unbelievably good. The orange sauce and ginger nut reacting perfectly together to create a symphony of taste against the coolness of the parfait, top notch. My G/F opted for the uber-lemony posset which was so lemony it could have taken the face off a badger. Despite this it was also devine and we both reacted in the same way as you do after expereincing taste on that level.

Even though I have obviously rambled on for a while now I am not one for writing reviews, in fact I have just finished writing my only other one for 'The Cellar Door', another Edinburgh establishment. The reason is that we were there for 2 nights and experienced two great meals in two completely different restaurants, hence the excitement. The big difference wasn't so much the food, as both were exemplary but it is the little touches which make something perfect. The Dogs, although I think I understand the feeling of the place just felt a tad on the 'trying too hard to be cool' side. Pretty staff, post-modern decor, interesting and varied menu, yes. No music, lack of warmth (atmospheric, not temperature!) and the feeling that the staff could tut at you for choosing the wrong thing. Other than thjose minor faults, awesome....

The Cellar Door, Edinburgh

Finding a good restaurant can be a labourious process, especially when visiting on a short holiday. You feel pressured to get things right, to justify the time and expense in such worrying and uncomfortable times, to spend your money on something that you will both remember from your trip.

The Cellar Door provided us with such an experience. As we are off travelling in a few months the opportunity to bring our own wine was much appreciated, effectively subtracted multiples of ten off the final bill (depending on how much you like wine!) To start I had the fantastically warming haggis fritters that had both texture and moistness and bite from the coarse black pepper, all finished with classy side salad. My G/F opted for the 'special' of Curried sweet potato soup that managed to both comfort and refresh without the need to overpower the pallet with thick gelatinous goo that you can get with a potato-based soup. It was devine.

For main my G/F opted for the chicken on chargrilled spring veg with pine nuts and balsamic jus. Everything looked interesting, was cooked to perfection and tasted delicious. (the ONLY negative here of the whole meal was the lack of any pine nuts). For my main I went for the rump of lamb on tomato and chive mash and buttered swiss chard. Due to the positivity of the reviews below you can safely assume that making the choice to visit this restuarant would be a safe-bet but if you need one reason to go then this would be it. The best dish I have ever had, without exaggeration. Perfectly cooked buttery mash with hints of sweetness and fragrance, delicate chard that struck that perfect balance and then perfectly cooked lamb that literally melted in your mouth, even though you wanted it to stay much much longer! I cannot quantify through words how much I enjoyed this. Perfect.

For dessert we were again treated to a vesture of taste. Quietly embarrassed, looking round to see if the people near us could see we were getting excited and giddy by the food provided for us. I opted for the trio of chocolate, an enticment of texture and taste that only provided you with a longing to repeat the whole three courses again. All made in the upstairs pattisserie the mint chocolate ice cream, chocolate cake and the mousse sent your tastebuds racing in a hundred different directions but meeting in the middle to agree on their set course. My G/F opted for the trio of ice creams that from her face, somehow managed to deliver an equal amount of satisfaction.

I know my words won't do this justice and I never usually write reviews it's just this place isn't even in the Lonely Planet guidebook (although their accuracy with maps is scandalous, so hardly surprising!). Sometimes it's just the little things which make you yearn for a return and despite the fact that it was definitely one of my top dining experiences it was the hospitality, the perfect timing balance between courses, the ambience and the atmosphere that won me. 10/10 in every respect and I can't wait to return to Edinburgh for round two.

Also, £51 for two eating three courses each with a brandy and Amaretto to finish plus the £4 corkage for our wine! Extraordinarily good!