Tuscan-style Ragù

Ingredients:
500 gr. fatty ground beef
1 Tuscan sausage removed of its casing and
crumbled
1 carrot (well minced)
1 celery stalk (well minced)
1 onion (well minced)
1 clove of garlic (well minced) – optional
1 handful flat-leaf parsley (well minced) –
optional
½ whole nutmeg grated
3-4 whole cloves
20 gr. dried porcini mushrooms (soaked in a cup
of warm water for 20 min., squeezed dry and well
minced) – optional
400 gr. crushed peeled tomatoes
1 Tbs tomato paste
1 cup red wine
½ lt. beef stock
6 sprigs of fresh thyme - optional
1 fresh bay leaf - optional
6 Tbs extra-virgin olive oil
salt
freshly-ground black pepper

Procedure:
1. Slowly sauté the carrot, celery, onion, garlic, and parsley in all the oil for a good twenty minutes. If using the mushrooms, add them to
your sauté after10 minutes and sprinkle with a few Tbs of the water the mushrooms were soaking in. Stir every so often when
necessary.
2. Add the peeled tomatoes and the tomato paste diluted in ½ cup of beef stock.
3. Heat a pot over a very high flame; when hot add the ground beef and the sausage and brown.
4. Add the wine to the ground beef and scrape any brown bits. Let the wine evaporate.
5. When the wine has evaporated add all the contents of the other pot and mix. Add the cloves, nutmeg, thyme and bay leaf and let the
sauce simmer over a very low heat for a few hours (4 hours or more would be ideal) ladle in some beef stock if it should dry out too
much.
6. Salt and pepper to taste.