First make the soffritto, finely chop the onion, carrot and celery and sweat it down gently in a large pan with plenty of olive oil, put the lid on, and stir every so often, for about 15 to 20 minutes. You want everything to be soft, sweet and golden, but not browned.

While the vegetables are cooking fry the bacon until the fat is rendered, then remove from the frying pan and add the minced beef. Fry this until browned and any meat juices released have bubbled away.

When the vegetables are cooked, add the garlic, fresh rosemary and stir until the aromas are released, then pour the vermouth in to the pan. This has to be plain dry vermouth, you can use white wine instead, as Antonio suggests, but vermouth keeps longer, is cheaper and does the same job.

Tip the meat into the pan too and deglaze the frying pan with a little more vermouth. Add that to the pan together with the dried sage, tinned tomatoes and the stock. Cut the tomatoes up roughly. Add lots of black pepper, and some white pepper too if you have some. Add a little more stock if you need to, you should have quite a loose soupy mixture so there's lots of liquid to cook away.

Put the lid on and simmer on a low heat, stirring every now and then, for about 1 and a half to 2 hours. Taste, and add more salt and pepper if you need to. Keep cooking until most of the liquid has been absorbed.

When you're ready to eat, cook the spaghetti, drain and toss in melted butter, salt, pepper and a little Parmesan cheese. Then add to the ragu some grated lemon zest, the crushed garlic and finely chopped rosemary. This is a tip from Jamie Oliver, it adds a lovely zingy finish to the beef. Serve the ragu on top of a pile of spaghetti, with some grated Parmesan.