Preheat the oven to 150C(302F) fan-forced. Put the onion, carrot, celery, garlic, parsley, bacon and anchovy into a processor and whiz to a fine mush. I used my blender for this step.

Heat the 50g butter and ½ teaspoon oil in a deep, heavy ovenproof casserole pot with a lid. Tip the blended mush into the pan and cook for about 5 minutes until softened.

Add the meat and let it brown a little, breaking it up in the pan then add the marsala. Process the tomatoes until smooth then add to the meat.

Stir the tomato puree into the milk and then add this to the pan along with 500mL of the stock and the two bay leaves.

Bring the pot to the boil on the stove then put the lid on and transfer it to the oven for one hour.

Once the meat sauce is out of the oven, take the bay leaves out and discard them.

Heat the remaining 1.5L of stock in another saucepan and keep that warm on very low heat and put the meat sauce on very low heat next to it.

Stir the rice into the meat sauce then add a ladleful of the hot stock. Stir until the rice and sauce becomes thick and then add another ladleful, stirring all the time. Check to see the rice is cooked after about 18 minutes. You might not need all the stock.

When it's ready, turn off the heat and stir through the parmesan before seasoning to taste.

Serve with an extra sprinkling of parmesan.