Pasta alla Genovese is a satisfying, rustic dish that features a sauce with braised beef and onions. This Neapolitan sauce tastes like it was cooked in an Italian grandmother's kitchen. Yum!
Place the salt pork (or other fat) into a 6 quart pan on your stove and turn the heat to medium high.
Once the fat is rendered from the pork (you'll see 2 to 3 tablespoons of liquid fat in the pot), remove the solid pork from the pot and set aside.
Place the beef in the pot and set to medium high heat. Brown the beef on all sides and remove. This should take about 10 minutes.
Place about a third of the sliced onions along the carrot, celery and bay leaf into the pot with hot oil. Cook until onions have softened and turned pale golden. This should take about 6 to 10 minutes.
Add garlic and cook for about a minute until fragrant.
Add the tomato paste and stir with the onion, celery, carrot, garlic mixture for about 2 minutes.
Pour in the white wine. Using a wooden spoon, scrape the brown bits off the bottom of the pot. Don't worry if you can't get all the bits. They'll release as the mixture cooks.
Add the beef back into the pot and then add the rest of the onions. Keep the heat on medium high, cover the pot and cook for thirty minutes.
Open the pot and stir. You should see a generous amount of liquid in the pot. Turn the heat down to the lowest setting and bring the mixture to a slow steady simmer.
Cook the simmering sauce for 5 hours, stirring frequently (about every 15 to 30 minutes) until the beef has totally fallen apart.
Serve over a hearty pasta like rigatoni or paccheri. Top with grated Pecorino Romano or Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese.
Garnish with fresh herbs. We used basil but you can also garnish with parsley or celery leaves.
Pro Tips
You can substitute 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil for the pork fat. If you use vegetable oil, you can skip the first two steps.
You can cook the sauce longer if desired.
You can serve the sauce with any pasta - your kitchen your rules. However, this dish works best with big hearty tube pastas like paccheri and rigatoni.
The sauce tastes better after it sits overnight and even better after two days.