Swap: swap the fresh cherry tomatoes for a tin of cherry tomatoes, the good quality ones if you can. They taste great when cherry tomatoes are out of season and can be a bit tough and flavourless. If you can’t use wine, here’s what to do: Wine is important here as it adds a nice kick of acid to the dish, when the sausages and creme fraiche are fatty. I love freezing leftover wine for cooking, if you aren’t going to drink it all. Once you’ve used what you need, pour the wine into a strong, sealable ziploc bag and place in the freezer. Due to the alcohol content, it never quite freezes solid and it means you can break chunks off and add directly to the pan when a recipe calls for wine. Now, if you can’t use wine for a variety of reasons, just use water and a splash of balsamic vinegar or lemon juice to add the acicity.

Fennel sausages: this would be delicious with fennel sausages if you can find them but any good quality sausages with high pork percentage is good. You could also use sausage meat mince - you probably need 300g roughly.

Make it veggie: This works with veggie sausages. Break them apart and fry in olive oil (they won’t crumble as much but they do break down into chunks). Continue as normal. Otherwise, just make this a creamy tomato, fennel & chilli pasta, no sausages. That will still be delicious but just a little different. I would maybe add anchovies (if you’re pescetarian) or some lemon zest would be good too.

If you want to double the recipe: just double everything.

A note on pasta shape: Use any shape you like. I love orecchiette here as the little ears scoop up the sauce nicely. I tend to go with shorter pasta here as it matches the chunks of sausage but the choice is yours. I actually think a tagliatelle or pappardelle would be good here too.

A note on crème fraiche: crème fraiche is best here as it’s rich enough to be saucy but tangy, so it’s not as rich as using double cream. But if you have some mascarpone, cream cheese or double cream open in the fridge, you can use this. Mascarpone - you can use the full amount. For cream cheese or double cream, I would start slower as they are a bit richer. Stir and taste, see how it is and how it looks. You can always add more but can’t take away.

What to do with leftovers: this will keep in the fridge for 3 days with no problem. To reheat, I like to either blast in the microwave 1-2 minutes until piping hot. Or add to a pan over medium heat with a splash of water or a knob of butter and just stir occasionally until heated through. I don’t love reheated pasta as it inevitably over cooks and goes a little too soft but I can make an exception for this.