Originally Posted by bensyd

I sort of wing it. I was never given a recipe and Italian food is best without recipes.

But...

This is what I used this time...

100g pancetta
1 onion
1 carrot
1 bit of celery
1 knob of butter
4 pork ribs (nice meaty ones are good)
2 rump steaks approx 250g each.
glug of red wine
squeeze of tomato paste
4 cans of baby roma tomatoes.

for the involtini/dressing
equal portion of parmigianno/pecorino and parsley
a handful of pine nuts

Pound out the rump steak (you can use chuck/sirloin etc – just a good fatty cut that will stand up to a slow cook) then spread the involtini filling in the steak and roll it up and tie with butcher's twine or toothpicks.

Add olive oil to large dutch oven style pot and brown meat and remove.

In the same pot add the butter (if you can get lardo use that), pancetta and sofrito on a very low heat and cook slowly until the onion is soft and translucent.

Add wine and tomato paste and let the alcohol cook out

Add the canned tomatoes and give it a swirl to mix everything up.

Add back the meat ensuring it's all covered by the sauce – if it's not add a little water.

Put on a very, very low heat uncovered on the stove. It shouldn't be simmering at all it should be maybe a bubble every 30 seconds or so comes to the surface. Leave for 5-6 hours.

Remove meat (this is traditionally eaten as the main course) and you're left with the sauce.

Pick a pasta and eat. Don't use spaghetti!

There's are a million +1 ways to make this but this is more or less how I was taught. The most important things I think are unlike bolognaise this should have a lot of tomato sauce, the very low and slow cook which puts so much flavour in there and the meat needs to be whole pieces not ground (preferably with some bone in there).