For around 6 people. (Its just a big batch of sauce!)

 

Ingredients:

• 2 onions (diced)
• 1 carrot (diced)
• 6 leaves fresh basil (chopped as finely as possible)
• 6 cloves of garlic (reduced to atoms - also chopped as finely as possible)
• 4 sausages - your choice (I used Italian spiced pork sausages)
• 65g chopped smoked pancetta 
• 2x 400g cans of chopped tomatoes
• 1 vegetable stock cube
• 1 meat stock cube (same type as the sausages)
• 3 tablespoons of olive oil.
• Dessert spoon of tomato puree
• 400g punnet of mushrooms (thickly sliced)

 

Method:

Use a big pan. A properly heavy duty son of a gun. Something with a lid. Any big pan will do but a heavy bottom one feels right. 
Get that guy on the cooker and turn the heat to medium. Before it heats up, go ahead and get your olive oil in there. Let it heat up.

If the oil has heated, go and add your sausages. You're going to want to cook them till they're dark on the side. Not burned though. Just properly cooked. It's a balance you're going to have to learn, and learn through experience. Try your best.

The sausages I used, they’re from a shop in Edinburgh called Valvona and Crolla and they are a treat (V&C Paesano Sausages - Piccante). When they're completely cooked on all sides, remove them from the pan and put them on a little side plate.

There should now be a mixture of olive oil and sausage fat in the pan. Add the smoked pancetta and move it around so it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pan. 

Once the pancetta looks to be cooked, pour in the onions, garlic, carrot, and chopped basil. It's going to smell amazing, but stir it around and get everything covered in that pan juice. You're gonna need to let that cook for around 5 minutes so that the onions go a bit translucent, and the oil gets absorbed a bit. Don't be tempted to turn that heat up though, you cheeky monkey. No rushing here. Burnt garlic isn't nice. It's nasty. If you burn the garlic; you'll ruin your meal, your day, not quite your life, but possibly Christmas. Keep it low and slow.

Add the dessert spoons amount of tomato puree. I never actually measure it, I just squeeze a decent amount into the pan and if it looks to be enough, then it's enough. You be the judge. Mix the tomato puree through so that everything is a decent red. I'm not saying it should look like the floor of an ambulance after something bad, but it shouldn't be a gentle pink either. Red. Stir that around and let it cook for a minute.

Add your stock cubes.
Add a veg stock cube, because of all the veg involved. 
Add a... meat stock cube. To match the sausage meat. The sausages I used were pork, so I added a pork stock cube. If you were using beef sausages... then go ahead and use a beef stock cube. If you don't want meat in the sauce, then do not use meat. Add two veg stock cubes. This is your meal. You are in charge. 

Once the stock cubes are added, crush them down and stir. Keep mixing them around until you cant see any trace of them. No proof that they were ever there. You're doing good. Nearly there.

Remember the cans of chopped tomatoes? Pour them in. Both of them. Done that? Nice. Now fill them with water. Pour that in too. Or, if you don't want to refill the cans, fill a jug with 800ml of water and pour that in. Mix everything around nice and turn the heat up to high.
Add the sausages back in, and the raw sliced mushroom.
It will start to bubble (since you turned the heat up). When it does that - turn the heat down to low. You want this to simmer. The mushrooms will cook and it's going to taste nice. Going to taste lovely. Going to possibly be the best homemade sauce you've ever had.

 

Cover the pan with half of the lid and leave it to simmer. Return every so often to stir and scrape up what's on the bottom of the pan, but let it do its thing. The onions are going to break down (sometimes they cry too), the carrots will soften, the smells are going to be incredible. But be patient.

After about 5 hours (yeah, it's a slow process), come on back in and remove the sausages. Cut them into whatever size of sausage bits you like. You could dice it or slice it. Leave it whole? I don't know. I'll be honest. I don't give a fuck what you do with the sausage. Cut it into long ribbons if you want. It's up to you. 

 

And there you have it. Go ahead and have with pasta. Or in a lasagna. Or... serve over ice cream. Pour it on your bedroom floor. It's your sauce and you can do what you want. 

 

I hope you enjoy.