Sausage Ragu

Sausage Ragu

40 min, serves 4

Ingredients

sausagemeat      500g, or 8 sausages
onion            1, chopped
garlic           3 cloves, sliced
fennel seeds     1 tsp
chilli flakes    pinch
tinned tomatoes  2 tins
whole milk       100ml
olive oil        2 tbsp
rigatoni         400g
parmesan         to serve

The tiny meatballs with the effort taken out. Same ingredients, no rolling.
Rigatoni or another tube. The chunks lodge inside them.
Throw in a parmesan rind while it simmers if you have one.

Recipe

1. Sausagemeat into the hot Dutch oven with the oil. Leave it completely alone for 5 minutes, then break it into big chunks and brown for another 10.

Don’t stir it into mince. Left alone it browns properly and holds together in chunks, and the crust stuck to the bottom of the pot is most of the flavour.

2. In for 5 minutes:

[onion 1 chopped, garlic 3 cloves sliced, fennel seeds 1 tsp, chilli flakes pinch]

Aromatics go in after the browning. Any earlier and they burn while the meat is still catching.

3. Milk in, simmer until it is almost gone, scraping the bottom of the pot as you go.

Milk before the tomatoes. It takes the acid edge off, and the scraping lifts all that browned crust back into the sauce.

4. Tomatoes in. Simmer 25 minutes, lid off. Salt.

5. Rigatoni in the big pan, 2 minutes under the packet time. Save a mugful of the water before draining.

6. Pasta into the Dutch oven with a splash of the water and a handful of parmesan. Toss until it turns glossy.

The starch in that water is what makes the sauce cling instead of sliding off into the bottom of the bowl.

❄ Freezer
Freeze: the sauce only, 3 months.
Reheat: from frozen in a pan, loosen with a splash of water. Never freeze the pasta.