Pasta Bolognese

I hestitate to describe this as a traditional Italian dish! Any Italian would reject it, I'm sure. But this is a British-style version.

Ingredients
pasta per person beef mince per person
onion
other
oil for frying
half a small tin of tomato paste
grated cheese (optional)

Equipment
knife and board for chopping
frying pan
saucepan
spoon for stiring

time:
prepare vegetables
fry vegetables and meat
cook pasta

Cooking process

Put a little oil in the frying pan for frying. Peel and chop the and fry it for a bit. Add any other ingredients that you want, then the mince. Fry until the mince is no longer red.
Add some tomato paste. I suggest half a small tin, which is quite a lot. You may prefer less. Stir and fry the mixture for a bit. Add some water, stir and leave to cook over a low heat.
Put the pasta in the saucepan. Cover with water. Heat until boiling, then turn down as low as possible, and cook until done (see below).
Put the pasta and mince on a plate, and add some grated cheese on top if you want.

Other ideas

There are many different types of pasta. This recipe is British rather than Italian, and was originally Spaghetti Bolognese, as this was the only type of pasta you could buy in Britain. If you still want to use spaghetti, there is a trick of cooking it. Uncooked, it's too big to fit in the pan. You can stand the spaghetti up in the boiling water, and as it gradually cooks, bend it round the pan. But honestly, why? I break the uncooked spaghetti up into pieces small enough to fit in the pan, and no-one notices! In the photo above, I've used tagliatelle, which I prefer. It is also long pieces of pasta, but flat, and the uncooked pasta is wound into balls of about one ounce each, so you use two per person, which is handy (although amounts of pasta is a very personal issue - you may prefer more). There are also other types of pasta, which I tend to call bow-ties or shells or whatever they remind me of. You can use whatever you wish.
Cooking pasta can be tricky. For some reason it tends to boil over. Make sure that you turn down the heat immediately it boils, and do not cover the saucepan, which seems to encourage it! Traditionally you add salt to the water (I don't) and one suggestion is that it should be as salty as sea water! The different types of pasta take different times to cook, but it's quick, about ten minutes. You are supposed to cook the pasta al dente or slightly under-cooked, so it's not too soft. However, undercooked pasta can be gritty, which I find unpleasant, so it's up to you.
This recipe uses half a small tin of . This is concentrated tomato paste, not tomato sauce of any variety. If you prefer, you can use chopped ordinary tomatoes, or tinned tomatoes. They will be more watery, so use less water.
can quite pleasant in this. Fry them with the onions. You're probably supposed to have . In fact, you can add anything you want, but remember that it doesn't have much cooking, so something like carrots might not get cooked.
You can add some herbs if you wish. Basil is supposed to go well with tomato. You can also add any other flavouring, such as special sauces.
I've suggested adding some grated cheese. Parmesan is the traditional cheese, but you can grate on any hard cheese that will melt. I like Cheddar.