Red Wine Sauce

There are quicker ways of whipping up a red wine sauce, but I like this. It yields a rich, deep sauce that will freeze like a naked inuit.

Ingredients

• 3 large shallots, chopped
• 1 carrot, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 10g butter
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 50g pancetta
• 450ml red wine
• 2 tsp plain flour
• 1 bay leaf

Heat the olive oil and butter in a pan until the butter melts. Fry the shallots, carrot and garlic over a medium heat, stirring, until they brown. Add the tomato and keep frying for two minutes or so, then add the pancetta. Keep everything in the pan moving as it fries and then, as pancetta colours, add 350ml of the red wine and the bay leaf. Turn the heat to low, cover the pan and cook for 30 minutes.

Transfer the whole lot to a saucepan, removing the bay leaf, and whizz with a hand blender, then reheat, covered, for a further 20 minutes. Strain this and cook for another 20 minutes and then strain again. Mix the flour into the remaining wine and add this to the sauce. Heat up and stir until it thickens and then remove from the heat and cover. Add any juices from the cooking to the sauce.

Reheat to serve.