Serves: 4

Excited! Nat is just over five months pregnant with baby #4, our first girl!

The spell is broken!

Our schedule of long lunches has been tempered somewhat and much less wine is being decanted. Though we’re having a girl!

It hasn’t meant the cooking has dialed down however. Quite the opposite.

Nat has gone headfirst into dough. Breads, pastry and pasta.

Especially the pasta, where we are determined with each cook to find just brilliant pasta. Stuff that screams: how good is life.

It starts with fresh pasta. In this instance, ziti, a small thin tube similar to a penne.

If making your own pasta, we always use this amazing Kitchenaid pasta dough recipe and suggest you do too!

And this sauce. Which I have adapted slightly and which is just sublime.

Almost as good as it gets. The second pasta we have cooked with a residual liquid which is just fun, so bloody good. Half the point of the dish. (Check out this white ragu which is just incredible.)

My point on the adaptation is a few.

I found the recipe on Lidia’s website and it didn’t quite translate.

I’ve crumbled the sausage meat here. Halved the broccoli and then used broccolini instead, which I cut into 3cm pieces. And guessed at the butter – measurement missing otherwise – which based on her previous recipes, was on the mark.

As Nat says, you need things to look forward to during the waiting period and pasta seems to have become our thing. No complaints there and absolutely no complaints with this pasta.

Sublime as I said. 1 hat good. Totally great restaurant stuff.

Ingedients

1 tbsp olive oil
500gm Italian sausage meat, removed from skins
500gm broccolini
3 tsp sea salt
500gm ziti
3 large garlic cloves, crushed
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp chilli flakes
1 c chicken stock
3 tbsp unsalted butter
1/2 c grated Parmesan

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a pan over a medium-heat and pan fry the sausage meat, breaking it up as you go. Fry until slightly browned, drain from the oil and set aside.
2. Wash the broccolini, drain and cut into 3cm pieces.
3. Heat a large pot with boiling water and cook the ziti until al dente.
4. In a large, deep, heavy skillet with a fitted lid, heat the olive oil, add the garlic and sauté, uncovered until golden, about 2 minutes. Add the broccolini, 1/4 tsp salt and pepper flakes, cover, and steam 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Stir in the sausage. Add the butter and stock and cook uncovered, over a high heat, about 3 minutes, until the liquids are slightly reduced.
6. Add the drained pasta to the sauce and toss gently. Sprinkle on half the cheese, toss again, serve immediately and distribute the remaining cheese over the pasta.