Take your large heavy-bottomed pot, pour in a thin layer of olive oil and put on the stove over medium heat.

Dress your bone-in meat with salt and pepper, put it all over. Have it reach room temperature before you start searing it. Be patient, turn them on all sides till they're nice and brown. And don’t crowd the pan! However many fit with an inch or two between them, you can do it in batches. When those are done put them aside on a plate.

Now you turn down the heat a bit and throw in the onions. Shouldn’t be screaming hot, you don’t want them to burn. Let those become soft and then add the minced garlic. Also this is when you can also add crushed chili peppers if you want to (I always do). Swirl them around a little bit until the oil is fragrant and gorgeous.

Now, put the meat back in and add a cup or two (two is better) of a dry red wine. I like to let that simmer a little bit, start mildly bubbling while I mix a Negroni and put on a Sinatra tune.

When the alcohol smell (from the wine cooking) subdues it’s a good time to introduce the tomatoes. I try to be efficient here and have all the cans open ahead of time, so stuff doesn’t burn you know. The tomatoes will cool the pan down so you want to turn up the heat for a minute until it reaches a simmer.

Let it do it’s thing on low heat. You want to see the occasional bubble, not boiling but also not flat. You don’t have to do it for four hours, but you can. The larger amount I make I let it simmer for longer, which also makes the meat more tender which we love. I’d say a minimum of an hour for this amount, or until the meat starts falling off the bone (mm!).

After that’s going for a while you can add the parm. I add the herbs later, like 20-30 minutes before it’s all done, but really no science to it. Oh and more salt! Maybe more olive oil, I like a nice layer on top of the sauce at all times, cause why not.