Rigatoni alla Genovese

📝 Ingredients

• 1 kg brown onions (7 onions, about 150 g each)
• 500 g braising beef (chuck or shin)
• 1 carrot + 1 celery stick
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 beef stock cube + 300 ml hot water
• 320 g dried rigatoni
• 100 ml pasta cooking water (1 small ladleful)
• 40 g grated Parmesan (20 g in the pasta, 20 g to serve)
• Salt, black pepper

🍴 Utensils

• Heavy-based casserole pot
• Large saucepan
• Chopping board
• Chef's knife
• Wooden spoon
• Colander

📖 Steps

1. Cut the beef into large 4 cm cubes and pat dry with kitchen paper. Peel the carrot, de-string the celery and cut both into very small dice. Peel the onions, halve them and slice into thin 2 mm half-moons.
2. Heat the oil in the casserole dish over a medium-high heat and brown the beef cubes for 5 minutes, turning them, until coloured on all sides. Don't overcrowd them: work in two batches if the pot is small.
3. Turn down to a medium heat, add the carrot and celery and fry for 3 minutes, stirring. Add all the onions, the bay leaves and a good pinch of salt, which helps them release their water. Stir: they'll shrink by half in a few minutes.
4. Dissolve the stock cube in the hot water. Pour 100 ml of this stock into the casserole dish, cover and leave to stew gently for 2 hours over a very low heat, at the barest simmer. Stir every 20 minutes, scraping the bottom well.
5. About every 30 minutes, add 50 ml of the remaining stock, sooner if the onions start to catch: all the stock should be used by the end of the 2 hours. The onions should then be melting, almost creamy and amber-coloured, and the meat should pull apart with a fork.
6. Remove the bay leaves. Uncover and leave to reduce over a low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, stirring, until you have a thick sauce that coats the spoon. Shred the meat with two forks directly in the sauce, add pepper and adjust the salt.
7. While the sauce reduces, cook the rigatoni in the large pan of well-salted boiling water (put on to heat towards the end of the simmering) for 1 minute less than the time on the packet. Scoop out 100 ml of cooking water before draining them in the colander.
8. Tip the rigatoni into the casserole dish, add 20 g of Parmesan and the cooking water, then stir over a low heat for 1 to 2 minutes, until the sauce coats every piece of pasta and gets inside the tubes. Serve with the rest of the Parmesan.