SAUSAGE, ’NDUJA AND FENNEL RAGÙ

SERVES 4

This ragù is full of beautiful aromatic flavours. Choose a really good quality pork sausage, preferably from the butcher’s, and you can find ’nduja at an Italian deli. I love the spicy kick of the ’nduja, but if you’re not keen on the heat, then simply leave it out. You will have more sauce than you need for this dish, but you can easily freeze what you don’t use (when you want to defrost it, just leave it overnight in the fridge). It also works a treat in the lasagne recipe on page 46.

30ml olive oil

1 large onion, finely diced

1 small fennel bulb, finely diced

½ head of celery, finely diced

4 garlic cloves, finely diced

500g good-quality pork sausage

3 tsp fennel seeds, toasted and ground ½ tsp coriander seeds, toasted and ground 3 bay leaves

¾ cup white wine

¾ cup chicken stock

100g ’nduja

3 tbsp mascarpone

½ bunch of sage leaves, chopped Parmesan, grated, to serve

400g pasta of choice

In a large saucepan, heat the olive oil and gently sweat the onion, fennel and celery for 20 minutes until soft and sweet, then add the garlic and fry for a further 2 minutes.

Squeeze the sausage meat out of the skins. In a separate pan, fry off the sausage meat on a high heat for 2–3 minutes, turning it to brown all over. You don’t want to cook it all the way through, but do try to get a nice bit of colour.

Transfer the sausage meat to the pan with the vegetables, then add the ground seeds and bay leaves, the white wine and chicken stock and simmer gently for 1 hour (there’s no need to put a lid on the pan).

Skim off any excess fat from the pan, then add the ’nduja and let it melt into the sauce.

Check the seasoning and add salt and freshly ground black pepper, if needed. At this point, I measure out about 300g into a separate pan and freeze the rest.

Bring a large pan of water to the boil before adding salt, and then cook your pasta according to the instructions.

Meanwhile, add the mascarpone to the ragù and stir it in. When the pasta is cooked, transfer it to the sauce together with half a ladleful of pasta cooking water, scatter over the sage and stir everything together. Check the seasoning again, then serve straight away, with grated Parmesan on top.