Elizabethan mince

“Elizabethan” mince, aka “Lizzie” mince

This was my absolute favorite meal growing up.  It is really, really good and very easy to make, although it does need to simmer for a while. My mother got the recipe from a Good Housekeeping (or similar) magazine back in the early seventies but cannot remember the author.  Does anyone know?  In any event what we do know is that the original was not called Elizabethan mince.  This was a name I came up with apparently, aged 6.  Weird child.  We ate a great deal of mince growing up. 

You will need

A packet of extra lean beef mince

1 large onion roughly chopped 

2 cloves of garlic finely chopped or squished in a pestle and mortar

2 carrots peeled with your vegetable peeler and cut into sugar cubed sized chunks 

1 stick of celery peeled and sugar cube

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1 tablespoon of tomato puree

A heaped tablespoon of medium heat curry paste (patak’s works well for me)

A tin of plum tomatoes drained of their juice and quartered (reserve the juice)

A tub of greek yoghurt about 300mls or so

Olive oil

Salt and freshly ground pepper

And to serve (The accompaniments are an integral part of this dish; if you have never had cooked cucumber before you are in for a treat)

Fusilli pasta cooked al dente

Half a cucumber deseeded with a teaspoon and cut into 2 inch batons and fried in butter  over quite a high heat until ever so slightly golden

A heaped tablespoon of flaked almonds toasted in a dry non stick frying pan (do not wander off when you are doing this, they burn if you do)

Method

Heat the oven to 160

Fry the carrots, onion and celery in olive oil (in a heavy pan that has a lid) over a gentle heat until soft.  This will take at least 20 minutes.

Now stir in the mince and brown it.

Add the curry paste, ginger and garlic and cook, stirring, for a minute or so, until the raw, almost vinegary, smell from the paste has evaporated.

Tip in the yoghurt and tomato puree and bring it to simmering point.  Then lightly stir in the chopped tomatoes being careful not to break them up.  Put a lid on and cook in the oven for an hour.  Halfway through the cooking time check to make sure things have not got too dry (although it should be fairly dry) and if so add some of the reserved tomato juice to loosen things up a bit.

Serve on top of the fusilli with the cucumber and almonds strewn on top.  Some chopped coriander would be nice if you have some although coriander was not part of the dish when I was growing up. 

Freeze the rest of the sauce in individual portions for another time. 

My brother tells me this is also good with buttered nan bread, brinjal pickle and a bag of watercress.