I made this a few weeks ago and it was amazing, so full of flavor. I don't have a mill so I used a food processor and it turned out great!

if i can add fennel should i use dry or fresh?

Italian deli's are where I most often find fennel sausage. In most areas there are usually a few places that specialize in sausages and meats. I suggest phoning around to your local butcher or an Italian deli to see if they don't sell it or perhaps they might now where you could find it.

If in the end you cannot find any fennel sausage, then sure go ahead and add some fennel seeds. For this recipe I would only add about 1 teaspoon or so, to start with.

In bocca al lupo! (Good Luck)

I made this recipe as close as possible as descibed. I did not have a food mill, so I used a a hand puree tool. This is a hearty sauce that has a depth of flavors.
I carried some for lunch the next day, and will serve it again over angel hair pasta.
Do this recipe; you won't regret it.
Terrell

A great dish. So full of flavour and texture, it's very rewarding. Now all I need is to get a food mill as I'm trying this and many recipies that recommend it. Can anyone suggest a butcher/grocer in Vancouver to get fennel sausage?

Where to buy fennel sausage in Vancouver? There are a few places that I know of. Santa Barbara on Commercial drive, and a few other Italian delis. But probably the best place to get them is European Meat Market at 540 Victoria Drive, because I believe they are the suppliers to the delis.

The gentleman that owns the Butcher is very friendly and the pricing are quite good. Hope that helped, Good Luck!

This sauce rocked the next day! I’m making it in advance next time.
Like most of you, I don't have a food mill but my sundried tomatoes were already julienned and I ran the tomato sauce through the blender. The sauce was very thick so I added about a cup of chicken broth as I didn't have tomato juice on hand.
Drank a Chianti Classico along side this and it was fab. A Barbera would be great for those who are more adventurous.

I made this dish last night and everybody loved the end result even though I did not have a food mill (I am now going to search for one) and I didn’t have fennel sausages and substituted mild and hot Italian sausages, the recipe still turned out great. I will make this recipe again using fennel sausages, If I can not find good quality fennel sausages I was wondering if any-body had a recipe for home made sausages? I find that it is not always easy to find sausages that are either not too fatty, or salty or (yuck) full of gristle. It would be worth making for this recipe.

We enjoyed this meal first time around but I think it was even better tonight using the leftover frozen sauce. We kept repeating how good it tasted! It has a great consistency and real Italian flavour.

I think I may have made a mistake with the amount of tomato paste (could have sworn that the recipe called for a large can of tomato paste), and used a LOT too much. I could taste the potential of this sauce, but the overpowering concentrated tomato flavor was too much for my taste. Personally I liked the fennel sausage, but my wife/kids didn't really care for it, so next time we'll try sweet. I used cavatapi instead of rigatoni, and everyone really liked that. Overall the grade at our dinner table was 6 out of 10, so even with my mistake it was pretty well received.

We'll definitely try this one again.

This was fantastic!! My Italian husband liked it even more than the spaghetti and meatballs his previous favorite :) I did sub the fennel sausage for spicy chicken sausage because it was what I had. Thank you Rouxbe for definitely elevating my cooking skills!! This site is awesome :)