Crunchy Sausage and Fennel Pasta Bake with Blistered Baby Tomato and Chilli Pasta Sauce
I generally make this pasta for my mate's kids if they come for dinner. It's a great way to use up stuff in your fridge, like extra sausages, and usually, everyone has a few tins of chopped tomatoes in their cupboards.
I was up at a food store in my local area a few weeks ago - Maloneys Grocer. They opened a branch in Rozelle probably about a year ago, but I'd only recently been up to it. I'd always been meaning to check it out as I knew I would love it. As predicted, I did wander around 'oohing and ahhing' to myself at all the beautifully laid out grocery offerings, beautiful food and drinks packaging and just the gorgeous feel of the shop.
I spied their own range of pasta sauce and liked the packaging, so I grabbed a jar and thought I'd use it for a recipe for the blog at some stage. MALONEYS SADLY DON’T SEEM TO OFFER ONLINE SHOPPING, SO JUST USE ANY DECENT TOMATO CHILLI (OR NON-CHILLI) PASTA SAUCE YOU LIKE.
That happened to be this morning when I found 6 leftover pork sausages from the best butcher in Sydney - The Irish Butcher. Being a Dubliner, I'm biased, of course, but I will always attest that the one thing Irish people do is know how to produce the best pork sausages on the planet. I buy them occasionally at my local IGA, and they usually get gobbled down PRONTO with HP sauce.
SERVES 4
LINKS TO PRODUCTS I USED IN THIS RECIPE ARE LINKED BELOW AND IN BOLD
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YOU WILL NEED
6-8 good quality pork sausages - I used The Irish Butcher
1 tbsp fennel seeds
Olive oil
2 large shallots or 1 medium brown onion, peeled
Handful of fresh basil, finely chopped
1 x 250g punnet baby tomatoes
4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
1 x 400g jar chilli pasta sauce - I used Maloneys
1 x tin chopped tomatoes
400g pasta shells - I used Duro Pasta "Lumache"
Grated Parmesan to serve
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
Slice the end off each sausage. Using damp hands, squeeze the sausage meat out from its casings. Discard the latter and set the sausage meat aside.
Warm the fennel seeds in a small cast iron pan over medium/high heat until toasted and fragrant. Remove and grind to a powder using a pestle and mortar. Set aside.
Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large frying pan. When hot, add your baby tomatoes and cook, tossing often for 4-5 minutes or until blistered and starting to soften.
Slice your shallots or onion very finely into rounds.
Add 2 tbsp olive oil to a large non-stick frying pan set over high heat. Add sliced shallot/onion and fry for 3-4 minutes, stirring often. Add the garlic and cook for 2-3 minutes, stirring often. Add the sausage and break it up using the edge of a spatula until it resembles ground meat. Scatter over two heaped teaspoons of the ground fennel seeds and chopped basil. Combine everything thoroughly and fry over medium/high heat until the sausage is cooked. When sausage meat is browned and cooked through, taste to check for seasoning, add salt to taste, and grind a good amount of black pepper.
Preheat oven to 180˚C.
In a large saucepan, cook pasta in salted boiling water per its packet instructions; however, knock 2 minutes off the cooking time. You want the pasta to be under al dente as it will be cooked again in the oven.
Remove 1 cup of pasta water from the almost-cooked pasta and set aside.
Drain pasta and return to the pot along with the pasta sauce, chopped tomatoes, blistered tomatoes, retained pasta water and half the cooked sausage mixture. Combine everything together.
Turn it into a baking dish, spread it out, and then top it with the remaining sausage mixture. Top with a good handful of grated Parmesan. Bake in the oven for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown.
ServE with extra grated Parmesan.