Easy fennel sausage rigatoni bake
400g rigatoni pasta
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 brown onion, pelled, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, peeled + minced
500g pork sausages (or sausage meat)
700g passata
1/2 cup cream
250g fresh mozzarella
grated parmesan, to serve
good quality olive oil
maldon sea salt flakes
freshly ground black pepper
Preheat oven to 180˚c/350˚f.
Cook pasta as per packet instructions but drain it 3 mins before it is ready, you don’t want to completely cook the pasta all the way at this stage. Drain and set aside.
Toast fennel seeds in a small non-stick pan for 1-2 mins or until fragrant, then grind finely using a mortar and pestle.
Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan and sauté onion for 3-4 mins over medium heat, add garlic and continue to fry for a further 5-6 mins stirring often.
If you are using sausages, removed the meat from the casing and discard latter, add pork meat to the pan with the onion/garlic along with the ground fennel seeds, continue to cook for 7-8 mins or until the pork is cooked through.
Add to the par-cooked pasta along with passata and cream, mix well and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Spoon half into a large, deep ceramic baking dish then tear up mozzarella into 4-5 chunks and dot in the pasta, add the remaining pasta and repeat with second ball of cheese.
Bake in the oven for 35-40 mins or until bubbling.
Serve with freshly grated parmesan on top.
NOTES
This is a super easy idea for a weeknight meal for your family or a great comfort food recipe. I used the famous Irish ‘Superquinn/SuperValu sausages’ in this as I originally had a packet in the fridge when coming up with the recipe. IF YOU ARE NOT ABLE TO GET THESE (OUSIDE OF IRE ETC), JUST USE GOOD QUALITY BUTCHERS PORK SAUSAGES INSTEAD.
I squeezed the meat out of the casing (if you are doing this, cut off the ends of the sausages first, wet your hands, grab the sausage in the middle and squeeze out of each end). Alt you can use prebought sausage meat.