There are so many versions of this, and everyone will have completely different ideas as to the ingredients and method. So here's mine, how do you do yours?

A FLAVOURFUL BOLOGNESE

Roughly chop an onion, a couple of carrots, a couple of sticks of celery and 2-3 cloves of garlic.

Put the lot in a food processor and blitz to a pulp.

Scrape the resulting mixture in to pan that is on a medium-low heat and to which a couple of tablespoons of olive oil has been added.

Sweat gently until the vegetables have softened but not coloured.

Now add your minced meat (beef, pork & beef, or pork, beef and veal), turn the heat up and break up with a wooden spoon until the mince is uniform and there is no redness left.

Add about 200ml of whole milk and increase the heat. Let it bubble until the milk has almost disappeared. The milk is to protect and tenderise the meat.

Now add a good splash of red or dry white wine and let it bubble away til almost gone, same as the milk. You can omit this stage if you don't drink or religious reasons.

Now add a couple of tins of good tomatoes, freshly ground black pepper, a bay leaf, a squirt of tomato puree, a teaspoon of sugar (this balances the acidity of the tomatoes), a pinch of oregano and a small pinch of salt (we will season properly later).

Bring up to a simmer then turn down to the lowest possible heat. The longer you can cook this the more flavour you are going to get, 3 hours is good, 5 is better. If at any time the ragu looks a bit dry then add a little chicken stock, or water.

Season to taste now. The reason I season at the end is because of the long cooking time. If you add your salt at the beginning it may well concentrate during the process and leave the dish too salty, and ruined.

Tear up some fresh basil leaves and stir through.

I just toss it with some tagliatelle and have some freshly grated parmesan to pass at the table.

I know 3-5 hours seems like a long time but once it is cooking you don't really have to do anything other than a stir every now and again, and maybe a splash of water or stock. You will however, be rewarded with a real depth of flavour that can't be got from any jar.