Meat/ Pasta

Pork and Fennel Ragu

Prep time: 30 min
Yield: 4
Ingredients: 500g good-quality minced pork; 100g pancetta; 1 medium onion; 1 medium bulb fennel; 2 large cloves garlic; 1tbsp fennel seeds; 1 tin Italian chopped tomatoes; 2 tbsp tomato puree; 4-5 sage leaves; Olive oil, salt, pepper; 150g pappardelle or tagliatelle pasta to serve.

Pork, sage and fennel – what a classic and amazing combination. Such a nice dish to cook, needing much less time than a full beef ragu sauce and with a lighter, zingier feel.

Adding white wine, bay leaf and/or chilli flakes are all excellent additions, but sometimes it’s nice to keep it simple and let the key flavours sing out on their own.

Cheat’s tip – you can make this with good quality, Italian sausages by just removing the meat from the cases, which is a delicious and quick way to make a pasta sauce.

Print Recipe

(3 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5)

Serves: 4

Prep Time: 30 minutes – Cooking Time: 1.5 hours

Ingredients

500g good-quality minced pork
100g pancetta
1 medium onion
1 medium bulb fennel
2 large cloves garlic
1tbsp fennel seeds
1 tin Italian chopped tomatoes
2 tbsp tomato puree
4-5 sage leaves
Olive oil, salt, pepper
150g pappardelle or tagliatelle pasta to serve.

Instructions

Finely chop the onion and fennel bulb and cook in olive oil over a medium heat for around 5 minutes.

Add the chopped pancetta. Turn up the heat a bit to cook the pancetta and render off the fat. Cook for another 5 minutes.

Next, add the sliced garlic and around half of the fennel seeds. Cook for another 2 minutes.

Next add the minced pork, breaking up with a wooden spoon and cook through, stirring regularly. This should take around 7-10 minutes.

Add the tomato puree to the base of the pan and a little water to loose before mixing in.

Lower the heat and add the chopped tomatoes. Add some water to clean out the tin and add to the sauce.

Season well and add the remaining fennel seeds.

Cook on the pan for around 10 minutes, until the ingredients are well mixed. You can cook on the hob for another hour or so, or put into an oven at 160º for an hour.

At the end of cooking, finely chop some sage leaves and add to the sauce. Leave to stand and cool for as long as you can, the flavours will develop as it cools.

When ready to serve, cook up some pappardelle pasta according to the packet instructions. I would cook it just for a minute less, so that it can sit in the sauce and keep cooking. As always with pasta, reserve a little pasta water to add to the sauce, which gives a looser and glossier finish.

Mix the pasta and re-heated sauce together and allow to sit for 1 minute. Serve with some grated parmesan and eat whilst steaming hot.

Notes

Any pasta will work, of course, but a meat ragu is always best suited to pappardelle, tagliatelle or fettucini. If you want to add wine, add before you add the tomato puree and turn the heat up high to reduce the wine down. Add bay leaf and chilli flakes with the chopped tomatoes if you fancy.