Cheesy Beef Taco Pasta

Ingredients

• 500g beef mince
• 200ml hot beef stock
• 1 red pepper, diced
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 onion, diced
• 2 garlic cloves, grated
• 400ml passata
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 2 tbsp mild taco seasoning
• 200g sweetcorn, drained if tinned
• 350g fusilli
• 200g mature Cheddar, grated
• 150g mozzarella, torn
• 3 spring onions, sliced
• 4 tbsp soured cream
• Warm tortillas, to serve
• Lime wedges, to serve
• Fresh coriander, to serve
• guacamole, to serve
• shredded iceberg lettuce, to serve
• pickled jalapeños, to serve

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a large deep pan or casserole over a medium-high heat. Pat the mince dry and season generously with salt and pepper before it hits the pan — water means steam, and steam means no browning.
2. Brown the mince in two batches, 4 minutes each, breaking it up with a wooden spoon until deeply coloured with crisp edges. All at once and the pan crowds, water leaches out, and you've boiled the meat instead of browning it. Return all the mince to the pan.
3. Drop the heat to medium and add the onion. Cook for 6 minutes until soft and translucent, scraping up any brown bits stuck to the base — that fond is flavour.
4. Stir in the garlic and taco seasoning and bloom them in the fat for 30 to 60 seconds, just until fragrant and clinging to the meat. Don't let the garlic catch — burnt garlic turns the whole pan bitter, and raw spices taste dusty where bloomed ones taste of themselves.
5. Pour in the passata and the hot beef stock — the stock is what breaks the passata down so it tastes of slow-cooked tomato rather than tin. Bring to a simmer.
6. Stir in the fusilli, sweetcorn and red pepper. The pasta cooks in the sauce here, so taste the liquid now and salt it like you'd salt pasta water — it should taste pleasantly seasoned, almost like the sea, because this is your only chance to season the pasta itself. Cover and cook on a gentle bubble for 14 to 16 minutes, stirring often so nothing catches, until the pasta is tender and the sauce has thickened to a glossy, clinging consistency.
7. Fold through most of the Cheddar a handful at a time until melted into the sauce. Tear the mozzarella across the top, cover, and pull off the heat for 2 minutes so the mozzarella softens into molten ribbons.
8. Taste, season, taste again — adjust now, not at the table. Loosen with a splash of hot water if you want it saucier.
9. Scatter over the spring onions, the reserved Cheddar, the coriander and a pinch of chilli flakes. Serve straight from the pan with dollops of soured cream, spoonfuls of guacamole, shredded iceberg and pickled jalapeños alongside, finishing each bowl with a squeeze of lime — the acid lifts everything you've just built.