Probably the ultimate comfort food. Warming, tasty, can be made in abundance and quick to reheat. We all have our own recipies for it and everyone claims there's is the best. So, let's all share our recipes for a good sauce and see what we can learn!

Ingredients:

Half beef mince, half pork mince.
Carrots.
Celery.
SMALL amount of Garlic.
Onion.
Star anise.
Salt and pepper.
Chopped, skinned plum tomatos.
Skinned sun dried tomatos.
Cup of Milk.
Red wine to taste.


Sweat off the carrots, onion, celery and garlic in a pan in olive oil. Add your beef and pork mince and cook with the star anise on low until browned. Add your tomatos and wine. Slow cook this for about 3-5 hours stirring occasionally. Add milk in right near the last hour or so, stir through and return to the heat. Serve over your favorite pasta.

You can also add some ground bacon to this but I find that overpowers it.

pound of ground beef
pound of ground Italian sausage
2 large carrots
3 stalks of celery
2 large onions
2 8 ounce cans of tomato paste
about 8 strips of bacon
star anise
nutmeg
1 cup of milk
beef stock

Mince the bacon and vegetables. Cook the bacon until all the fat is rendered out, remove and drain the bacon pieces and cook the FINELY MINCED(key point here) veggies until the're thoroughly sweated. Add the meat to this and cook until the meat starts to pick up lots of color. You don't want to use a high heat, just medium. It'll take longer, but you'll get better flavors this way. After this is all done, add the tomato paste and cook and stir until everything is evenly distributed. Add the milk and spices to your liking(I use about a half teaspoon to a teaspoon of each). Cover and let simmer for a few hours. If it loses too much volume, add some beef stock.

One ingredient I've heard is amazing in Ragu is ground chicken livers.

wasn't there just a thread about ragu?

oh yes, there was.

http://www.totse.com/community/showthread.php?t=2162000&highlight=ragu