MSE version of Dolmio sauce jars?

krlyr

Bronnie wrote: »

.........and because quantities you might use and the flavour of even tinned ingredients can vary each time, it's important to develop your sense of taste when cooking. Taste the sauce as you make it and jiggle around with ingredients and taste again. With time and experience, you'll start to be able to work out what ingredient might be lacking as you make your sauce . In addition to the other tips, I often find a splash of lemon juice lifts a bland tomato sauce.

I think you've got it right here, unfortunately my speciality is more baking than cooking and I just can't pinpoint what's missing (buttercream or cocoa powder probably won't do the trick..). Tasted fine this morning, but still seems like it's missing something. Maybe our tastebuds just need to adjust to a slightly less artificial taste though!

Shashwoo

AlternateMe wrote: »

I've never frozen onions or mushrooms... do you chop them and put them in the freezer in a big bag, and then grab a handful when needed? Do you need to defrost first or just chuck in a frying pan? Thanks xxx

Hi,

All you need to do is if you see onions or mushrooms on special buy then and chop them up and put them in freezer bags and stick 'em in the freezer.
When yo require some just get the bag out and if frozen together and sometimes they are in my battered old freezer bang the bag on the worktop and grab a handful or however many you need. You put them in the frying pan frozen.

I didn't know you could freeze mushrooms and felt really stupid when I told my OH about it and he said "of course you can silly, where do you think the mushrooms come from on top of mushroom pizzas" :rotfl:

rachbc

the secret to good tasty bolognese i slong slow cooking - at least an hour, ideally 3.

fry onion and garlic in olive oil, add finely diced carrot and stick of celery, sweat slowly til soft, turn up heat, add beef (or mix beef and pork) and fry til brown, add a glug of wine, tinned toms or carton of passata, squeeze of tom puree and herbs, Simmer for 3 horus, add a grate of nutmeg and plenty of black pepper.

chubbster_1

I use a large pan - actually it's my pressure cooker pan!

rough chop 2-3 large onions,
skin and chop half a large punnet of mushrooms,
chop or crush half a bulb of garlic (i.e. several cloves)
two tins of value tomatoes
half a tube of tomato puree
good double handful of frozen sweetcorn
large teaspoon of bovril
splash of worcester sauce
sprinkle of dried mixed herbs (maybe half a teaspoon)
a bayleaf or two
1-2 teaspoons english mustard
800g packet of mince.
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
black pepper to taste (a few turns of the grinder)

Fry off the mince and drain off any excess fat.
Add the onion and garlic and fry some more.
Add tomatoes and puree and cook for 5 minutes.
Add everything else, stir and leave to cook on the hob on a low heat stiring occasionally for at least an hour.

This makes it a bolognaise.

We do three portions from this as bolognaise, then I add the following ingredients to turn it into a chilli.

2 tins of red kidney beans drained and rinsed
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon hot paprika
1 teaspoon cayanne powder
several drops of tabasco
1 stubby bottle cheap larger

Cook on and off for the whole day (15 mins cooking, 1 hour sitting), to allow the flavours to mature.

This is now a chili.

It makes an 800g pack of mince go a LONG way!

ETanny

Our bolognase sauce is...

a couple of onions
garlic (as much or as little as you like!... I like a lot )
Mushrooms
tinned chopped tomatos
tomato puree
(if you want a bit of a kick add some chilli powder)

I took this recipe off my mum and adapted it to my familys tastes. Its one of the few dishes I can gaurentee my DD will demolish!

mirry

I have tried a few recipes
but they taste nothing like the dolmio sauce that my family love. Does anyone know how to make it so I can save some money pls ?

Bitsy_Beans

Well if I am being honest not much will taste just like Dolmio as it's probably not loaded with sugar etc. Taste buds do have to adjust somewhat from the more processed stuff to home cooked.

Pink.

Hi mirry,

I agree with Bitsy, Dolmio is full of sugar and salt, is highly processed and not particularly good for you. If you want to try to educate your family to eat homemade over Dolmio this thread has lots of recipes:

making bolognaise sauce from scratch

If they still prefer Dolmio, this thread may help:

MSE version of Dolmio sauce jars?

I'll add your thread to that one later to keep the suggestions together.

Pink

mirry

thanks I will take a look, I make everything from scratch
but they prefer Dolmio :mad:. I dont like the thought of it loaded with sugar - yuck !

krlyr

Pink linked my thread, I followed a mix of all the recipes posted and the result wasn't bad It's not quite the same as Dolmio but it was fine and I'm sure we'll get used to it. Adding sugar definately helped - I know you don't like the thought of the sugar but at least you can control how much sugar is in it (and perhaps decrease the amount in each batch as their tastebuds adjust). The tip for adding more tomato puree helped - added nearly a whole mini-tin of Tesco's double strength one, but that was for a kilo of mince with a fair amount of lentils and grated carrot to bulk it out. The carrot is meant to help make it sweeter too. Worcestershire sauce gave it a bit more flavour, and we chucked some chilli flakes in - the spiciness helped counteract the less sweet flavour I think.
I had the batch of mince in the slow cooker but I put a small frying pan on a hob and put a spoonful or two of the bolognese/mince in the pan to experiment - added some sugar, tasted it, if it was an improvement then I added some sugar to the slow cooker. Added some worcestshire sauce, yup that worked, added some to the slow cooker. Tried a splash of red wine - yuck, that was a no for me, and luckily I hadn't chucked it in the slow cooker and ruined the lot! I found this method helped identify what was missing, I don't have the tastebuds to taste it and say "Oh, that's missing basil!", I just added various ingredients until it tasted better.
I also found it tasted better after a night in the slowcooker - when I left it to go to bed it was "fine, but missing something" so I decided to experiment again the next day when I served some for dinner - but tasted it the next day and the flavour had definately improved. So if you have the time to leave it to cook for a bit, give it a while before retasting it and adjusting ingredients if necessary.