Figure 1. This dish has brought me more joy than I can easily recount.

Italian food has always held a small warm space in my heart. Something about the flavors, the textures, the apparent brightness in the food has been easy to fall into for most of my life.

Like lots of college students, pasta and sauce was a staple throughout my younger years and it took quite a while to feel comfortable making my own sauce. Like all people though, we change and part of that path for me has been a more thorough approach to my home cooking.

This dish in particular has been a touchstone from which I draw joy for the better part of my time in the city after COVID. Something about the price, the speed, and just how delicious it is makes it such a simple choice when that toubling question of what to eat comes around.

Now the recipe itself isn’t exactly public knowledge, nor are any similar creations readily available online. If you look for a “Pipette Ragu” in Google, you’re certain to find some tomato sauce based recipe. If you look at the Forma Pasta Factory menu, you’ll see an ambiguous “herbal cream sauce” as the primary dressing, and recipes that match this naming vary wildly in presentation and contents.

I spoke with the employees at Forma and they did give some good information. Clues like “a white wine”, “homemade sausage” and “cooking the sausage in the sauce” helped me greatly narrow down how I would approach cooking it. Watching the chefs spoon the solidified sauce, mix it with pasta water, fry it and garnish it also helped me form understandings as to how I would store it and how I would prepare it. Using all the things mentioned I came up with this recipe:

Sausage Mix
- Olive Oil
- Fennel Bulb 1/2 cup chopped
- Onion 1/2 cup chopped
- Hot Italian Sausage .5lbs uncased

Ragu Sauce
- white wine 1/2 cup
- garlic 4 cloves chopped
- tomato paste 1 tbsp

- heavy cream 1 cup
- chicken broth 1/2 cup
- parmesean cheese 1/2 cup

- thyme 1/2 teaspoon
- dill 1/2 teaspoon
- basil 1 teaspoon chopped

Garnish
- parmesean cheese
- chopped parsley
- black pepper

1. Coat the pan in olive oil and heat to medium. Saute the fennel and onion until carmelized.
2. Add in the italian sausage and fry until browned and crispy bits line the bottom of the pan.
3. Pull the mix out into a bowl, do not wash the frying pan.
4. Mix in the white wine, garlic and tomato paste and bring to a boil. With a device that doesn't damage the pan scrape off the bits of fried sausage into the mix and reduce until the wine's volume has halved.
5. Mix in the heavy cream, chicken broth, parmesan cheese, thyme, dill and basil into the pan. Cover and simmer for 30-45 minutes.

Serving instructions (per 3 oz dried pasta):
1. Cook some pasta (preferably pipe rigate, lumanche or plain old macaroni) in salted water until al dente. Drain all but 1/4 cup of water from the pan.
2. Add 1/4 cup of sauce to the mix. Stir the sauce, pasta and pasta water together on medium heat for 2-3 minutes or until the sauce thickens.
3. Garnish with parmesean cheese, chopped parsley and black pepper.

Something to note. The ragu sauce can be frozen and should have a whipped cream-like texture when refridgerated.

Time spent:

• 20m initial drop
• 20m second pass