Slow-Cooked Beef Ragu

Break the mince up loosely with your fingers on a plate, so it goes into the pan in pieces rather than as one cold slab.

Heat 1 tbsp of the olive oil in a wide heavy pan over high heat, until it shimmers and runs thin across the base.

Lay half the mince in the pan in a single layer, with bare metal showing between the pieces.

Scatter 3g of the fine salt over it.

Leave it alone for 3-4 minutes, until the underside has crusted deep brown and lifts off the base without tearing.

Brown the meat in two batches with room around it. All 800g in the pan at once cannot shed its water fast enough, the pan drops below browning temperature and the mince stews grey in its own juice — and that crust is where most of the flavour of a ragu is made, before any liquid goes near it.

Break the meat up with a wooden spoon and cook for a further 2-3 minutes, until it is browned in patches throughout.

Move it to a plate.

Brown the second half the same way in the remaining oil, with the remaining 3g of fine salt.

Move that batch to the plate as well.

Turn the heat down to medium-low and add the diced onion, carrot and celery to the same pan — the soffritto, the aromatic base softened slowly in fat before anything else joins it.

Cook for 12-15 minutes, stirring and scraping the brown film off the base as the vegetables release their water, until they are soft, sweet and just starting to colour.

Stir in the garlic and cook for 1 minute, until it smells sweet.

Add the tomato puree and cook for 2 minutes, stirring constantly, until it darkens from bright red to brick.

Return the meat and any juice on the plate to the pan.

Pour in the milk.

Simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the milk has all but gone and only fat is left glossing the meat. It may look curdled on the way, which is normal and cooks out. The milk goes in before any acid, and it softens the meat in a way nothing later in the recipe can.

Pour in the wine.

Simmer for 5-8 minutes, scraping the base, until the sharp alcohol smell has gone.

Crush the tinned tomatoes into the pan one at a time in your fist, keeping your hand below the surface of the juice. Do not blend them, for the reason set out in the simple tomato sauce in this collection: a blender aerates the pulp and shears it too fine to gain any body.

Pour in the hot stock. A batch of the chicken stock in this collection makes this sauce six times over.

Tuck in the bay leaves.

Bring it to a bare simmer, where a bubble breaks somewhere on the surface every second or two. This is the same heat the slow-braised beef shin is held at, and for the same reason — a ragu kept at a proper boil tightens the meat into dry grains and drives the fat out as a slick, and three hours of that cannot be undone.

Cook uncovered, or with the lid propped ajar, for 2.5-3 hours, stirring every 20 minutes and scraping the base as you go.

Add a splash of hot water whenever the sauce thickens enough to catch.

Stop when the fat has separated out as an orange rim at the edge of the pan and a piece of meat crushes to nothing against the side under a spoon.

Take the pan off the heat and stand it for 30 minutes, which lets the fat rise where it can be reached.

Spoon off most of the risen fat, leaving a little behind for gloss.

Fish out the bay leaves.

Season with the ground peppercorns.

Taste and add fine salt, bearing in mind the parmesan still to come.

Bring the 3 litres of water to the boil in a large pan.

Stir in the 15g of fine salt for the pasta water.

Cook the pasta for 1 minute less than the packet says, until it still has a firm core when you bite a piece.

Ladle 300ml of the cooking water into a jug before anything is drained. As in the cacio e pepe in this collection, that starchy water is an ingredient, and once it is down the sink there is no way back.

Warm the ragu through in its wide pan over medium heat.

Lift the pasta straight into the sauce with tongs, or a spider for short shapes, letting it drip but not draining it dry.

Toss over the heat for 1-2 minutes, adding the reserved water a splash at a time, until the sauce coats every piece and slides slowly rather than sitting still.

Never ladle ragu over a bowl of bare pasta. Those last two minutes in the pan are what make the sauce hold on; spooned over the top it slips to the bottom of the bowl and the pasta above it stays dry.

Take the pan off the heat and stir through half the parmesan.

Serve into warm bowls with the rest of the parmesan scattered over.