All the deep, sweet savouriness of French onion soup, turned into a one-pan pasta dinner. Slowly caramelised onions, golden pancetta and our bronze-die Short Rigatoni cooked right in beef stock so the sauce turns silky, finished with a bubbling gruyère top under the grill. It takes a little patience with the onions, but everything happens in one pan and the payoff is huge.

Serves: 4 to 6 Prep time: 15 minutes Cook time: 1 hour

Ingredients

• 400g Monty & Sons Short Rigatoni (most of a 500g bag)
• 6 onions, halved and sliced pole to pole into long strands
• A good glug of extra virgin olive oil
• 50g butter
• 150g thick-diced pancetta (or thick-cut bacon, see tip below)
• 2 cloves garlic, finely diced
• A generous glug of white wine
• 2 tsp thyme, fresh if you can
• 2 tsp fresh rosemary, plus extra finely chopped to serve
• 1.2L beef stock (Simon Gault's is yum)
• 40g parmesan, grated
• 70ml cream
• Gruyère, grated, for the top
• Salt, to adjust at the end

Method

1. Caramelise the onions. Heat the olive oil and butter in a large ovenproof pan over medium high heat. Add the onions and cook until they start to brown on the bottom. Add 60ml of water, stir and scrape up all the browned bits, then cook down again until the onions are sticking and browning. Repeat the water-and-scrape process until the onions are deeply caramelised. Don't rush this part, it's where all the flavour comes from.
2. Brown the pancetta. Push the onions into a pile on one side of the pan so you have clear space. Add the pancetta and cook until golden.
3. Build the base. Add the garlic, then stir the pancetta and onions together. Deglaze the pan with a generous glug of white wine, then stir in the thyme and rosemary.
4. Add the pasta. Tip in the Short Rigatoni and stir to coat, then pour in the beef stock. Bring to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes.
5. Make it creamy. Stir in the parmesan and cream. Continue cooking, stirring now and then so nothing sticks, until the sauce has thickened and the pasta is cooked, around 15 to 20 minutes all up.
6. Season last. Taste and adjust the salt now, not earlier. The stock and pancetta bring plenty of salt and it concentrates as the sauce reduces.
7. Grill the top. Preheat your oven grill while the pasta finishes. Grate gruyère generously over the top of the pan and grill until golden and bubbling.
8. Serve. Spoon into bowls and scatter over the finely chopped rosemary.

Tip: If you can't find pancetta, thick-cut bacon from Pestell's in Nelson is a brilliant substitute and some supermarkets stock it. And when you're slicing the onions, cut them pole to pole (root to tip) so you get long strands that hold their shape through the caramelising.