Rebellious recipes for bolognese

The thing I hate most in life is being told off. Not long ago I was stopped by a police officer for cycling through a red light. I was totally in the wrong, but the policeman's condescending tone immediately put me on the defensive.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous that is, sir?" he asked me, in a bored drone. "How do you think your parents would feel if I had to knock on their door and tell them you were dead?" I stared sullenly at my feet for a while, before inspiration struck. "My parents are dead!" I lied. The police officer didn't flinch. "Well, what if I had to tell your siblings?"

I feel similarly irritated when people get too insistent about the "proper way" to cook things. Take the 450 chefs who staged an international protest five years ago in an attempt to stop people cooking bolognese the "wrong way". Or rather, wrong ways: there are many different ways to bastardise a bolognese.

According to the purists, it should be made strictly according to the recipe deposited with the Bologna Chamber of Commerce in 1982. The mince must be beef flank, the pancetta unsmoked, the pasta tagliatelle – never spaghetti! – and it must on no account contain garlic. "Tag" bol, they claim, is "the most abused Italian dish".

Come on, guys. This isn't Watergate. It's just someone's tea. Besides, every good dish gets adapted to fit cultural and geographical demands. Bolognese is the now second-most popular dish served in British homes (after roast dinners). It's been a staple of British home cooking for almost half a century, and we've developed our own ways of doing things.

So if you like your bolognese a lurid tomatoey red – good for you! If you like to add chicken livers to your base, knock yourself out (although the flavour's too strong for me). Red wine or white wine? Whatever you have left over. You want to put garlic in? Yum.

If you really want to piss off the purists (or are trying to cut down on red meat), try the recipe below, from my business partner John's wife, Katie, for turkey bolognese. It is so delicious that it made its way into the Leon: Naturally Fast Food cookbook.

Or, if you have yet to settle on a signature bolognese recipe, here also is an absolutely knockout version from Jane. I made it on holiday recently for the children, while the grown-ups ate a posh pork belly. Everyone agreed that the children got the better deal. Like the traditional version from Bologna, it uses milk (and long, slow cooking) to give it a soothing creamy savouriness. But it also contains enough verboten ingredients to be a little bit rebellious.

Spag bol

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 1 hour 30 minutes

Serves 6
1 onion, finely chopped
2 carrots, finely chopped
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
100g pancetta/smoked streaky bacon, finely chopped
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
3 garlic cloves, crushed
250g beef mince
250g pork mince
A sprig of fresh thyme
100ml red wine
1 x 400g tin chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
250ml chicken stock
250ml milk
Salt and black pepper
400g dried spaghetti or tagliatelle
Grated parmesan, for garnishing

1 In a large, heavy-based saucepan, cook the vegetables with the pancetta in the oil and butter over a medium heat for about 10 minutes until soft. Add the garlic and cook for a minute before turning up the heat and adding both types of mince and the thyme.

2 Brown the meat in the pan for a few minutes before adding the wine. Stir well and reduce the wine while scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon.

3 Add the rest of the ingredients and season the mix well. Bring up to the boil, then simmer for an hour – adding a little extra milk if necessary.

4 Cook your pasta as per the instructions on the packet or until al dente. Drain well and toss with the hot sauce and a little parmesan. Serve.

Recipe by Jane Baxter

Katie's turkey bolognese

Preparation time: 5 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes

Serves 6
2 tbsp olive oil
2 medium onions
2 garlic cloves
600g turkey mince (or leftover turkey, blitzed)
1 dried chilli
250g mushrooms
2 level tbsp tomato puree
2 440g cans chopped tomato
750ml (old) red wine
300ml chicken stock
A dash of Worcestershire sauce
A big sprig of fresh thyme
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 Finely chop the onions and garlic, and slice the mushrooms.

2 In a saucepan, heat the olive oil, add the onions and garlic, then cook until they are starting to brown. Add the turkey mince and brown it all over, stirring thoroughly to make sure that it's cooked throughout.

3 Crumble in the dried chilli, add salt and pepper, then add the mushrooms and cook for a few minutes.

4 Add the tins of chopped tomatoes, the tomato puree, the wine, the chicken stock, the Worcestershire sauce and the thyme.

5 Simmer the bolognese gently on the hob with the lid on for 1 hour 30 minutes, making sure it doesn't boil too fiercely.

If the bolognese seems to dry out, add more chicken stock, if you have it, or water.

You can also cook this in the oven for an hour after simmering it on the hob initially. Make sure the oven is low, around 150C/300F/gas mark 2.

Henry Dimbleby is co-founder of the natural fast-food restaurant chain Leon (@henry_leon). Get your kids cooking at cook5.co.uk