Whip up this easy sausage pasta on a weeknight and you'll feel like you're enjoying a leisurely lunch at an rustic Italian agriturismo in the Chianti hills on a Sunday afternoon.

Recipe from Made in Italy (HarperCollins, 2011) by David Rocco

Per 4 persone

1 lb. (450 g) casarecce
3 tbsp (45 mL) olive oil
1 small white onion, peeled and finely chopped
10.5 oz. (300 g) pork sausage
1 cup (225 mL) white wine
2 cups (450 mL) tomato purée
salt and freshly ground pepper
1/2 cup (110 mL) grated pecorino cheese

If you want, you can make the sauce while your pasta is cooking. So get your pasta started.

I recommend you start with some excellent sausage that's already seasoned. Heat up a frying pan, add some olive oil and finely chopped onion and let them gently mellow in the olive oil. Remove the sausage from its casing and put it into the pan. Let that cook until it starts to brown and then add in the wine and let that reduce. Add in the puréed tomato and season with salt and pepper to taste. Bring it to a light boil, then lower the heat and let it simmer for about 15 minutes.

Cook your casarecce until before the al dente stage. Drain it, reserving about a cup of the pasta water in the pot. Put the pasta back in the pot and on the heat. Add the sauce and mix. Finish cooking the pasta until it reaches the al dente stage. The sauce will reduce and thicken up and become one with the pasta.

Remove it from the heat and throw in the grated pecorino. Mix it in well and serve. This may be your new favorite pasta.