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Rick Stein’s Fennel and Sausage Ragù with Tagliatelle
Introduction from Rick Stein
This is the sort of pasta dish I always seek out in Italian restaurants because I love fennel-flavoured sausages. At home, I find it’s easiest to reproduce the flavour by using good-quality sausage meat and adding fennel seeds, chilli, garlic, rosemary, salt and black pepper. What I love about this dish is that it is nurtured with plenty of cream and served with home-made egg tagliatelle.
Ingredients
Method
For the pasta, combine the flour, eggs and salt in a food processor. Tip the mixture out on to a work surface and bring it together in a ball of dough. Cover with cling film and leave to rest for 20–30 minutes. Roll out the pasta into a couple of sheets about 2mm thick. Run them through a pasta machine, or use a knife to cut them into 5mm-wide ribbons. Hang them over the back of a chair or a broom handle to dry.
Break up the sausage meat into a large ovenproof pan and add half the oil to start with. If the sausage meat is fatty, it might render quite a bit of fat and you won’t need the rest of the oil; if it’s quite dry, you will. Cook over a medium heat for about 10 minutes, stirring from time to time. Add the onion, garlic, celery, fennel seeds, chilli flakes and rosemary, season, then cook for a further 15 minutes. Pour in the wine, cook for few minutes until reduced by half, then add the cream and stock.
Put a lid on the pan and simmer gently for half an hour – take the lid off near the end if the sauce needs thickening up.
Cook the tagliatelle in plenty of boiling salted water for about 4 minutes until al dente. Drain, add to the ragù pan and mix. Serve in warmed bowls with freshly grated Parmesan.
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Reviews
4.9 out of 5 stars
38 Ratings
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