Spice up your bolognese with these Middle Eastern twists

Every Middle Eastern household will have a version of this, and there’s never really any hard and fast rules besides one, very non-Italian rule: it should be heavily spiced.

This is an edited extract from Lugma by Noor Murad (Quadrille, $55). Pictures by Matt Russell

You can’t rush a good bolognese; it needs time to cook low and slow, for the ingredients to melt into each other and for the whole thing to transform into a silky, rich sauce. Every Middle Eastern household will have a version of this, and there’s never really any hard and fast rules besides one, very non-Italian rule: it should be heavily spiced.

Try too my green beans with lemon and feta.

This bolognese is rich and spicy.

Noor Murad. Pictures by Matt Russell

Middle Eastern bolognese

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 1 carrot, peeled and finely chopped
• 1 green capsicum, stem and seeds removed, finely chopped
• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 300g minced beef
• 300g minced lamb
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• 3 fresh bay leaves
• 1 dried lime, poked a couple of times with a sharp knife
• 2 mild red chillies, pierced a couple of times with a knife
• Seeds from 15 cardamom pods, crushed
• 1 tablespoon cumin seeds, crushed
• 2 teaspoons coriander seeds
• 1 teaspoon Aleppo chilli flakes
• 1½ teaspoons dried oregano
• 1½ tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 400g can plum tomatoes
• 150ml milk
• 20g coriander, roughly chopped
• Sea salt and black pepper

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a large, deep-sided, lidded sauté pan over a medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrot and capsicum and cook, stirring occasionally, for about 5 minutes, or just until softened. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes more. Stir in the minced beef and lamb and cook for 10 minutes, using a spoon to break apart any clumps until finely crumbled. It will release lots of liquid at first; allow this to cook down and the meat to start to brown.
2. Stir in the cinnamon, bay leaves, dried lime, chillies, spices, oregano, tomato purée, the stock cube, 1 teaspoon salt and a very generous grind of pepper and cook for a couple of minutes, until fragrant. Pour in the canned tomatoes and 300ml of water, bring to a simmer, then turn down the heat to its lowest setting; cover with a lid and leave to cook for 2 hours, stirring every 25 minutes or so. At the end of this time, the sauce should be thick and rich.
3. Pour in the milk, replace the lid and cook gently for 25 minutes more. Set aside to cool slightly, then pick out and discard the cinnamon sticks and bay leaves. Remove the dried lime, squeezing its juices into the sauce, and either discard or, if you like its bitterness as I do, finely chop and stir back into the sauce, along with the chopped coriander. The sauce is now ready to use.

Serves 6

Middle Eastern bolognese pasta bake

The bolognese in action as a pasta bake.

Lugma by Noor Murad (Quadrille, $55).

This is my favourite way to showcase the Middle Eastern bolognese.

Ingredients

• 300g rigatoni
• 1 quantity of Middle Eastern bolognese (see previous page)
• 125g feta, roughly crumbled
• 125g buffalo mozzarella, roughly torn
• 25g pine nuts, well toasted
• 10g coriander or parsley, leaves and soft stems roughly chopped
• Fine sea salt

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C (fan-forced). Bring a large pan of water to the boil over a medium-high heat. Season with 2 teaspoons of salt, add the pasta and cook until al dente. Measure out 130ml of the cooking water and drain the pasta through a colander set over the sink.
2. Select a baking dish measuring about 23 x 33cm or a round one 28cm across. Add the drained pasta, the bolognese sauce and the reserved pasta water and mix to combine evenly. Pick out the whole chillies and lay these over the top, then sprinkle evenly with the feta and mozzarella. Bake for 30 minutes, or until crispy and browned around the edges.
3. Sprinkle over the toasted pine nuts and fresh coriander or parsley, and serve warm.

Serves 4-6