Pasta Genovese (beef and slow-cooked onion sauce with rigatoni)

Brown the ground beef really well.

Add lots of sliced yellow onions and a good pinch of salt to draw out moisture; cook about 20 minutes until cooked down and starting to colour.

Add a splash of white wine and cook it out for about a minute.

Add the water and the carrots (and a diced stalk of celery, which the recipe calls for); cover and simmer a couple of hours, a few hours in all, peeking occasionally.

Cook the pasta in well-salted water until very al dente; reserve some starchy cooking water.

Add the pasta and starchy water to the sauce and cook together 2 to 3 minutes until the pasta is done and the sauce thick and creamy.

Add parsley, plenty of freshly grated parm and black pepper; cook a couple of minutes more until glossy and thickened.

Turn off the heat and let sit a couple of minutes; serve with more parm and parsley.