Rigatoni with sausage and fennel is just right for an ordinary weeknight. All you need is sausage, a fennel bulb and a tin of tomatoes. In Tuscany sausage is often seasoned with fennel seeds, so fresh fennel, with its light aniseed flavour, goes really well with it. Proper salsiccia from an Italian deli is lovely, but a coarse bratwurst without much garlic will do.
First you fry the sausage meat hard so it browns and releases its fat, and then the fennel softens in that fat. It should get really tender. Let the tomatoes simmer only until you have a thick sauce. Take the rigatoni out of the water a minute early and let them finish in the pan with a little pasta water, so the sauce clings to the pasta.
Add the pecorino right at the end, as it clumps in sauce that is too hot. Finish with the fennel fronds, and if your bulb has none, use a little flat-leaf parsley instead.
Ingredients
Steps
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AI-GENERATED
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What to drink
Chianti
A simple Chianti with fresh acidity and little oak goes well with the tomato sauce and the spiced sausage. You do not need an expensive bottle.
Variations
Mushrooms instead of sausage
Fry 250 g sliced mushrooms in the same pan with a little more oil until well browned, then carry on as above.
With cream
Stir in 3 tbsp cream at the end. The sauce turns milder and less tangy.
Other pasta
Penne or paccheri work just as well. The chunky sauce is less suited to long pasta.