Baked pasta with fennel sausage

With thanks from Sophie Hansen's book 'What Can I Bring?'

Serves 8 | Prep time: 30 min | cook time: 3 hours

Call it a crowd-pleaser, call it comfort food, call it a simple pleasure. Whatever you call this baked pasta, just make it! And make it in advance if possible so come dinner, it's a matter of heating and eating. This is a simple concoction of pasta in a rich tomato and fennel sausage ragu, topped with a layer of nutmeg-spiced bechamel and some breadcrumbs for crunch.

My tip is to make up all the elements in advance so they are cold when you come to assemble and bake them (particularly the ragu and béchamel – this way they don’t bleed into each other as much).

Ingredients

1/3 cup (80 ml) olive oil
1 kg Italian sausages (the fat ones with fennel, or your favourite fancy sausages)
2 brown onions, diced
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 Tbsp thyme leaves, finely chopped
2 Tbsp rosemary leaves, finely chopped
2 cups (500 ml) tomato passata
800 g (1 lb 12 oz) tin whole peeled Italian tomatoes (or the same amount of fresh tomatoes, roughly chopped)
500g orecchiette or penne pasta
2 cups (140 g) sourdough breadcrumbs
1/2 cup (40 g) grated parmesan cheese

Bechamel sauce
100 g butter
1/2 cup (75 g) plain (all-purpose) flour
5 cups (1.25 litres) full-cream milk, warmed
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1 cup (80 g) grated parmesan cheese

Instructions

Heat the olive oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium–high heat. Squeeze the sausage meat out of the casings and into the pan. Brown the meat, stirring and breaking it up as it cooks, for about 5 minutes. Add the onion and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring often. Add the garlic and herbs and cook for another 5 minutes or until the onion is completely cooked through and lovely and soft. Add the passata and tinned or fresh tomatoes and give it all a good stir. Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring often, for 2 hours.

Meanwhile, for the bechamel sauce, melt the butter in a saucepan. Just as it is starting to froth and inch towards turning brown, add the flour and whisk for a minute or so until the butter and flour come together into a sandy paste. Add 1/2 cup (125 ml) of the milk and whisk quickly until you have a smooth paste, then add the rest of the milk, 1/2 cup at a time, whisking after each addition, and cook until you have a beautiful, thick white sauce. Remove from the heat and add the nutmeg, parmesan and some salt and pepper, stirring until combined and smooth.

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F). Cook the pasta in boiling salted water according to the packet instructions. Reserve 1 cup (250 ml) of the cooking water before draining the pasta. Stir the pasta through the ragu, adding the reserved water if it needs a little more moisture. Tip the ragu into a large ovenproof serving dish, pour the bechamel over the top and sprinkle it with the breadcrumbs and reserved parmesan.

Into the oven, it all goes for 40 minutes or so until the top is golden and the bechamel is bubbling through the breadcrumbs.

Baked pasta with fennel sausage

Serves 8 | Prep time: 30 min | cook time: 3 hours

My tip is to make up all the elements in advance so they are cold when you come to assemble and bake them (particularly the ragu and béchamel – this way they don’t bleed into each other as much).

Ingredients

Instructions

Keep up to date with Fairfield Wellness