Italian Sausage, fennel and cherry tomato orecchiette

Italian Sausage fennel and cherry tomato orecchiette Photo: Gretchen Lowe

Ingredients

• Good drizzle olive oil
• 2 shallots, finely chopped
• 2 fresh chillies, finely chopped
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 500g good-quality pork and fennel sausages
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 can cherry tomatoes
• 250g orecchiette pasta (pasta shells work well too)
• ½  cup Italian parsley, chopped
• Juice of half a lemon
• ⅓ cup cream
• ½ cup of parmesan

Method

Remove skins from the sausages.

Heat oil in a large frying pan; add shallots, chillies, fennel seeds and rosemary stirring for 5 minutes or until lightly browned. Add garlic and cook for another minute.  Add the sausages and cook, stirring, until browned.

Stir through the tomato paste then tinned cherry tomatoes. Bring to a boil, season, then reduce the heat, simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes or until thickened.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling, well-salted water until just tender; drain.

Just before removing the tomato and sausage sauce from the heat, stir through Italian parsley, lemon juice, cream and parmesan.

Combine pasta with tomato and sausage sauce.

Serve topped with parmesan cheese.