Pasta sauce 'Pankow'

Ingredients for 12 servings:

• 1,200 g minced beef
• 400 g minced pork
• 750 g carrot(s), peeled, weighed, diced
• 300 g celeriac, finely diced
• 2 large onions, red, finely diced
• 1 gr. can/n tomatoes, pureed or crushed
• 400 g fresh mushrooms, white or brown, sliced
• 250 cl white wine, dry
• 4 tbsp tomato paste or 2 small cans
• ½ liter of water
• 2 tbsp, leveled salt
• 1 tbsp, levelled sugar
• 1 tsp, leveled cayenne pepper
• 3 cloves garlic, finely diced
• 4 pinches of pepper
• 1 pinch of cinnamon
• 5 tbsp olive oil

Instructions

Working time approx. 1 hour; Total time approx. 1 hour

Meat sauce for all kinds of pasta, similar to a Bolognese

Prepare a very large pot (at least 9 liters). Heat the olive oil until very hot and sauté the celeriac for 3 minutes. Push the celery to the side of the pot and sauté the diced onions in the center for 3 minutes (careful: neither the celery nor the onions should turn black). Push the onions to the side as well. Then sauté the diced carrots for 5-7 minutes (remain at full heat). Sprinkle the sugar over the carrots and stir in gently. Then add the mushrooms. Everything should take on some color. Add the tomato paste (still try to sauté and not boil). Deglaze with the wine. Stir everything thoroughly. Meanwhile, dry-sauté the meat separately in batches(!) in a non-stick pan. In my experience, this only works in small batches; otherwise, it will start to boil in the pan. Add the meat to the sautéed vegetables in the pot and add the canned tomatoes. Pour in the water and stir thoroughly. Stir in salt, cayenne pepper, garlic, and pepper. If the sauce is too thick, add more water. Cover and simmer for one hour, stirring occasionally. Towards the end, stir in a pinch of cinnamon and season to taste. In my opinion, a meat sauce doesn’t need to simmer for hours. The important thing is that the meat (and the other ingredients) are really well browned. This means you can’t cook the mince in a pan, you have to roast it. This is tedious because of all the small portions! But it’s worth it, otherwise you don’t get any roasted flavors, and that’s what really matters; the cooking time is really secondary. There’s nothing wrong with using several pots at the beginning (apart from the washing up) to achieve perfect browning results! Of course, everything has to come together in the end, that’s for sure.