Pappardelle al ragù: revisiting one of the world's most popular dishes.

The world doesn't need another spaghetti bolognese recipe, so I've given it the title above. However, what passes for bolognese can sometimes do with improvement, so to go back to the source (no pun intended) occasionally could be a good idea. The concept is simple: it should be homely, robust and appetising: and that's just the aroma. If you ever walk down Little Italy (Lygon Street or even Hardware Lane) at eleven-thirty in the morning, what stops you in your tracks is that steamy, herbal aroma of a sauce in its early stages; carrots and onions and wine bewitching the air.

The pasta best suited to this sauce is a flat, thin one made with eggs; last night I used pappardelle which provides greater surface area for the sauce to cling to; a kind of fork-driven conveyor belt to your mouth.

I diced a few slices of pancetta and fried it in a little olive oil in a large pot before adding a diced carrot, a finely chopped stick of celery and half a chopped onion. I chased these around the pot with a wooden spoon for five minutes or so until they were sweating; an alchemic transformation that lays the salty, herbal foundation on which is built the holy temple of ragù.

Then I added 500g of minced lean beef to the pan (some traditionalists prefer 50% beef and 50% pork and veal. Chacun à son goût, to slip into a parallel European universe). With a gently shovelling, chopping motion, I used a flat frying tool held fork-style to oook the meat through, until all the pinkness had gone. When it was done I tipped in half a cup of white wine. (White steers it in a herbally fragrant direction; use red for a more robustly homely flavour.)

When the wine had evaporated, I added a 600g jar of tomato puree or passata (which are the same thing), half a cup of milk, and half a cup of beef stock. All you do now is stir it every little while and keep an eye on the fluid level, adjusting as the sauce reduces over a couple og hours.

Later, I cooked the pasta: to al dente - not just because it is a textual mouthfeel thing, but because once it goes past that point the pasta becomes too full of water to carry the sauce effectively.

I drained it quickly and, in the colander, the plain slightly yellowing white sheets suddenly looked like fine old translucent paper; sheets on which Beethoven might write a fourth concerto for piano in G major, or which Hemingway might write books about bullfighting or boxing or wine-drowned lunches at between-the-wars Spanish cafes with slanting afternoon sun turning a bottle on a table into green fire or all three; but the sheets were egg and flour and water and the music you write on them is the flavour explosion of the world's most popular sauce, done well.