Beef and Beans With Pasta (2024)

This comes from the children’s food chapter of How to Eat, but it should certainly not be confined to the Kids’ Menu. It is a de-stressingly easy, fabulous tasting, one-pot meal that provides instant comfort.

When my children were little, I didn’t add any parsley to this (one of them had nothing but affronted disdain for Green Bits) but please add a scattering of freshly chopped parsley to serve if you wish. And I pour over mine some fierce and glowingly orange chilli oil.

For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

This comes from the children’s food chapter of How to Eat, but it should certainly not be confined to the Kids’ Menu. It is a de-stressingly easy, fabulous tasting, one-pot meal that provides instant comfort.

When my children were little, I didn’t add any parsley to this (one of them had nothing but affronted disdain for Green Bits) but please add a scattering of freshly chopped parsley to serve if you wish. And I pour over mine some fierce and glowingly orange chilli oil.

For US cup measures, use the toggle at the top of the ingredients list.

As featured in

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  HOW TO EAT

  1998

1. This is all you do: put the onion, garlic, carrot and celery in the food processor and turn on for a few seconds until you have a finely chopped orangey-jade mess. (If I’m chopping finely by hand I might, out of laziness or time-pressure, not bother with the carrot or celery.) Cook the vegetables in the oil in a medium-large saucepan or enamelled cast-iron casserole / Dutch oven for 5-7 minutes over medium heat, until beginning to soften at the edges, but not brown. Stir regularly.
2. Turn the heat up, add the beef, and turn it in the hot pan, pushing it and breaking it up with a wooden spoon, spatula or fork, until it loses its raw redness. Add the drained tin of beans, then slowly stir in the beef stock, and tin of chopped tomatoes (and a slug of red wine if you’ve got a bottle opened somewhere, or red vermouth if you prefer, as I often do).
3. Bring to the boil, add the macaroni, let it come to the boil again and then turn down the heat and cook, uncovered, at a robust simmer for 18–20 minutes, stirring every now and again during this time to make sure nothing’s sticking to the bottom of the pan. When it’s cooked, and the pasta tender, much of the liquid should have evaporated or been absorbed and what you’ll have is a thick, busy stew of a soup. Add a splash of hot water if you feel it needs it. Taste for salt and pepper, grate some Parmesan over, if wished, and let the eaters grate some more themselves.

1. This is all you do: put the onion, garlic, carrot and celery in the food processor and turn on for a few seconds until you have a finely chopped orangey-jade mess. (If I’m chopping finely by hand I might, out of laziness or time-pressure, not bother with the carrot or celery.) Cook the vegetables in the oil in a medium-large saucepan or enamelled cast-iron casserole / Dutch oven for 5-7 minutes over medium heat, until beginning to soften at the edges, but not brown. Stir regularly.
2. Turn the heat up, add the beef, and turn it in the hot pan, pushing it and breaking it up with a wooden spoon, spatula or fork, until it loses its raw redness. Add the drained tin of beans, then slowly stir in the beef broth, and tin of diced tomatoes (and a slug of red wine if you’ve got a bottle opened somewhere, or red vermouth if you prefer, as I often do).
3. Bring to the boil, add the macaroni, let it come to the boil again and then turn down the heat and cook, uncovered, at a robust simmer for 18–20 minutes, stirring every now and again during this time to make sure nothing’s sticking to the bottom of the pan. When it’s cooked, and the pasta tender, much of the liquid should have evaporated or been absorbed and what you’ll have is a thick, busy stew of a soup. Add a splash of hot water if you feel it needs it. Taste for salt and pepper, grate some Parmesan over, if wished, and let the eaters grate some more themselves.