Rigatoni Al Forno

When the weather is cold, wet and miserable I take comfort in my kitchen making winter-warming food for my family. I love making meals that we all look forward to after a long day at the office or college and this pasta dish is comfort food at its absolute best. I was thinking about what to make for dinner when I remembered this pasta recipe that I used to make often and was a favourite of ours. My boys actually got excited when I told them what I had made for dinner and there wasn’t a scrap left on any of our plates. This is definitely one that all you pasta lovers out there should try!

Rigatoni Al Forno

Serves 6

Ingredients
For the meat sauce
1 onion
2 carrots
2 sticks of celery
2 cloves of garlic
50g unsmoked streaky bacon or pancetta
50 g butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
500g minced beef
400g can chopped tomatoes
2 tablespoons tomato puree
250ml red wine
2 bay leaves
200ml water, swilled in the tomato can

For the béchamel
85g butter
50g plain flour

500ml milk
Salt or stock granules to taste
Freshly grated nutmeg

1 x 500g pack Rigatoni pasta

25g Parmesan, freshly grated (I also used cheddar)

Roughly chop the peeled onions, peeled carrots, the bacon or pancetta and the celery. Peel the garlic clove and put them along with the chopped veg and bacon into a food processor and finely chop. Or chop finely by hand. Heat the butter and oil in a large pan and fry your bacony vegetable mush gently for 10 minutes or until soft.

Add the minced beef and fork it through until it browns in the pan as much as possible. Pour in the chopped tomatoes, puree, red wine, bay and tomatoey water. Stir well and bring to the boil, then turn down the heat, partially cover and let cook gently for 2 hours.

To make the white sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan then add the flour and stir and cook together to make a roux. Take off the heat briefly, and whisk in the milk – just using a hand whisk – then put back on the heat and, stirring all the time, let the sauce come to boil and bubble away for a few minutes to get rid of the floury taste. Season with salt and pepper (or you could use some crumbled stock cube or bouillon concentrate). Turn down the heat slightly and cook until slightly thickened, though this needs to be liquid-y enough to coat the pasta easily. After turning off the heat stir some freshly grated nutmeg through the sauce.

Preheat the oven to 200˚C/fan oven 180˚C/gas 6 and put the water on for the pasta. When the water comes to the boil, add salt and cook the pasta until its al dente.

Drain the pasta and, while still a little wet, put it back into the saucepan and pour the white sauce over, mixing well. Add the meat sauce and mix again, until the pasta is covered in both. Tip the sauced pasta into a large buttered roasting or oven-proof dish, cover the top with grated parmesan and cook for 30- 40 minutes or until the top is crispy and golden.

Recipe from Feast by Nigella Lawson