Paccheri with Finocchiona salami and tomatoes

Last week I was in Rome. It's nice, and I'll probably do a proper update on it (and the food) shortly.Particularly, I should write about the deli we visited: VolpettiIt's a wonderful old-school deli on the Via Marmorata, and despite being a bit of a tourist spot, the produce was splendid. So I brought back a giant Finocchiona, one of my favourite sausages. It's rich, slightly buttery, and chock-full of fennel.To be honest, it's better raw than cooked, but on the Monday after I got back, I just wanted to use it in something, and since I'd just discovered paccheri (giant macaroni), that seemed like the thing.This is substantially the previous recipe with dried sausage and different photographs.

Ingredients:

• Finocchiona sausage (any strong salami would do, I guess, plus a pinch of fennel seeds)
• Patsa, paccheri in this case
• A couple of fresh tomatoes
• Onion
• Garlic
• A splash of dry sherry

Instructions:

This really was trivially simple. The onion, garlic, and tomato are diced very fine. The salami is diced roughly.Fry the onion gently until soft, then add the garlic and cook it through without it colouring much. Raise the heat a little and add the tomatoes. The aim is to cook them down but not dull the freshness. So cook them off for a few minutes, then reduce the heat, add a glug of sherry, and let them simmer gently for ten or so minutes more.This is pretty much enough time to cook the pasta.Towards the end of the cooking time, add the sausage to the sauce, so that it heats through without losing it's texture too much.When the pasta's done, toss it all together with a little parmesan.

The result is piquant, with the fennel from the salami coming through strongly. The freshness of the tomatoes remains, and I'm glad I held off on adding any herbs - it's the simplicity that works here.Again, honestly, it does more justice to the salami to serve it in an antipasti, just on its own with a little rocket. But this works too.Fuck, I love this stuff.