Manchester Q - Spag Bol?
 

Folks on Coronation Street are always talking about Spag Bol - Spaghetti Bolognese i guess - so where would i find good Spag Bol in Manchster, Manchester, England?

Hahaha interesting question. It definitely stands for spaghetti bolognese, but in my experience here in London it is almost always a comfort food made at home!

Preferable to Mac and Cheese any day.
Definitely a home made comfort food, which no-one from Bologna would ever recognise.

Absolutely, it's a comfort food made at home, most likely with a jar of Dolmio sauce and Tesco steak mince!

The dish - practically unheard of in Emilia-Romagna (but so's spag & meatballs)- is still quite common in British "Italian" restaurants of a certain age.

But in restaurants it's just about always mean and acidy (and STILL sometimes served with that disgusting bought-in grated Kraft Parmesan that smells like vomit). At home - or at chums' homes - it rarely tastes very Italian, but it's almost always got that ebullient, affectionately-made, feel that really is the binding element of all proper Italian food.

In fact, when cooked by Britons of my generation, it's almost as impossible to find bad Spag Bol as it is to find bad pasta al forno in an Italian home.

By definition, of course, you can't find good Spag Bol in a restaurant. A modern big-city Italian might well serve dynamite tagiatelle al ragu - but, while infinitely more authentic, it wouldn't taste remotely like a decent Spag Bol.

"most likely with a jar of Dolmio sauce and Tesco steak mince!"

Not in the flannerhome it bloody well isn't.

Brown decent mince (nothing wrong with Tesco's, of course), and a spot of chicken liver, add a battuta till it starts melting, burn off the alcohol in a good slurp of red plonk, add a pint of home-made fresh tomato sauce (and some veg stock) and let it simmer for an hour or so.

If poss, leave it overnight. Add to a pan of pasta the following day in a ratio at least three times saucier than any Bolognese restaurant would dream of.

More importantly, what is a Coronation Street.

Oh Roger! For Shame!! http://www.itv.com/soaps/coronationstreet/

:)

I agree with you flanner, every step of the way (though I've not added the chicken liver, I will bear it in mind for the future).

However, you only have to walk down the pasta/sauces aisle of any supermarket to see it lined with jars and jars of ready-made pasta sauces, Dolmio being a leading brand.

Given the time constraints of day-to-day life, a jar of good pasta sauce (good being the operative word here) can be most useful when there just isn't the time to make your own tomato sauce.

Of course you still use onions and garlic, and add a good splash of red wine to rinse out the jar!

Yes, nothing beats a good spag bol when made from scratch, but an adequate substitute can be made when required.

For years my mother would chuckle over a sweetly inexperienced young waitress they met in Scotland (in the days when mince and tatties were more commonly available in lots of places), who would always refer to spaghetti bolomayonnaise.

Well on The Street it was Tyrone, not the brightest knife in the Coronation Street drawer for sure, who was bragging about the spag bol he would make for Molly, his wife. I thought it may be a staple in local restaurants but guess not. It does sound hearty and good in a filling way.

PalenQ - you have had Spag Bol havent you??

Spaghetti Bolognaise, outside of Italy, consists of a meat sauce served on a bed of spaghetti with a good sprinkling of grated Parmigiano cheese. Although Spaghetti alla Bolognese is very popular outside of Italy, it never existed in Bologna, where ragù is served always with the local egg pastas tagliatelle or lasagne.

jamikins - i have had lots of Spahetti Bolognaise out of a can - very common here.

Phew...thought maybe it was a new concept :) I think its one of my favorite comfort foods...my hubby makes a mean spag bol!

It has to be made with good quality mince though.

I can't stand those chewy crunchy bits you get with cheap mince, and all the fat that runs off... eeeeewww!

I buy the best steak mince I can, and still run it through the food processor to grind it further so it doesn't cook in lumps.

And ALWAYS freshly grated parmesan.

Spag Bol is perhaps the standard, basic, first thing a young man might be able to cook without poisoning everyone (for an older generation, it would have been shepherd's pie). It's a signifier that Tyrone isn't as sophisticated as he thinks he is.

flanner - we use the chicken livers too; have you tried adding some chopped black olives to it? they don't so much make it olivy as enrich and deepen the flavours.

Interesting tips about olives and chicken livers!

Where do you find good Spag Bol in Manchester?

Sainsburys in Wilmslow buy a bottle of Brunello Di Montalcino and an "own label" basics Spag Bol. Instructions....

1. Open bottle
2. Drink all contents of bottle
3. Open packet of Spag Bol
4. Put in microwave for anywhere between 4 and 20 minutes doesn't matter
5. Put contents of packet on plate
6. Eat the best Spag Bol in Manchester

That's what why Fodor's exists - you will find Spag Bol on Corrie but not Brunello.

Inside information wins everytime.

(in the days when mince and tatties were more commonly available in lots of places),>>>

My mum still feeds me this.

*feels old*

"own label" basics Spag Bol.>>>>

As someone who has to eat a LOT of ready meals, I can say that the Sainsburys standard Spag Bol - not the poncey one - is simply wonderfull.

Spag Bol is perhaps the standard, basic, first thing a young man might be able to cook without poisoning everyone (for an older generation, it would have been shepherd's pie). It's a signifier that Tyrone isn't as sophisticated as he thinks he is>

exactly - now i know why the writers wrote what they wrote - Tyrone was trying to get the attention of wife Molly who has been preoccupied with Kevin, Tyrone's boss, with whom she is having an affair - and to impress her he was going to 'make a mean spag bol' - looser

He was probably going to put Marmite in it, too....

Mind you, Kevin is hardly in the romantic wine-and-dine class, is he?

Mind you, Kevin is hardly in the romantic wine-and-dine class, is he?>

not normally but at this time he was wineing (sp?) and dining (and bedding) plump Molly at a posh hotel in Chester - when they were supposed to be running a 10K in Glasgow!

Tyrone is as they say 'a little slow on the uptake'

>>at this time he was wineing (sp?) and dining (and bedding) plump Molly at a posh hotel in Chester - when they were supposed to be running a 10K in Glasgow!<<

My word, they've changed scriptwriters, obviously. I'm so out of touch.

Good Italian nosh at Croma near Albert Square Manchester.

There are lots of very good Italian restaurants in manchester City centre, who will all serve something like a Spag Bol, or maybe Penne or Tagliatelli or Farfalle or some other pasta with a sauce. Try:

San Rocco-South King St
San Carlos-Off Deansgate
Piccolinos-Albert Sq
Stock-Norfolk St

and several others. You might just see the cast of Corres in San Carlos with a sprinkling of footballers.

It's grim up north.

Funnily, my daughter, too, rather likes the Sainsbury's basics Spag Bol. Personally I would have thought it would be disgusting, compared to home made, but votes otherwise may change my mind.

The grimness is usually caused by long faced Southerners coming up here and broadcasting from our fair City.

Manchester is one of the best cities in the UK for everything. Now then C_W, can I spit out your bait?

Looks like you've been hooked.

PalenQ....um...Coronation Street....erm, it's fiction....

>Brown decent mince (nothing wrong with Tesco's, of course), and a spot of chicken liver, add a battuta till it starts melting,

What is a battuta? I googled it and got hits for either a gay restaurant in Sydney or Ibn Battuta, who was evidently a widely travelled Muslim of the medieval period. Am guessing you mean it to be neither of these things ...?

Lavandula

"I googled it "

Google shows 1,320,000 references to battuta meaning things other than restaurants or the feckless Arab with a habit of begetting and abandoning children throughout the Muslim world.

In Italian cookery, especially in the centre and north, it's a mix of finely chopped veg (usually onion, root veg, garlic and parsley) which is gently fried to provide a base for many sauces and soups.

There are 143,000 references on google to battute containing onion and celery

Sorry, you've got it wrong. This is an Argentine striker who played most of his club football at Fiorentina.

Now then C_W, can I spit out your bait?>>>

Shouldn't you be strangling kestrels?

No, we're not hungry this week. We're still eating the bloke from Shoreditch who called selling jellied eels.

>>This is an Argentine striker who played most of his club football at Fiorentina.<<

Ah. Hairnets at dawn, then.

You haven't been to Shoreditch recently have you?

Sushi yes, tapas, yes, japanese food that tastes of snot, bien sur, Eels? no chance.