Prep Time: 15mins    Cooking time: Approx. 25mins    Serves: 4

Rivet is having a very good year. It's thrived in this year's trial plots, and out at Green Acres Farm, where Liz and Mark Lea have been growing it for us, it's done even better than we hoped. Next year we'll have a lot more of it, and this is exactly the kind of dish we made it for.

Sausage, saffron and tomato is about as classically Italian a combination as it gets, and it turns out to be the perfect match for a wholegrain pasta that doesn't taste or behave like wholegrain pasta usually does. Rivet is an old wheat, nearly forgotten, once simply grown across England before modern durum took over the job of making pasta. It's bouncy, properly flavoursome, and carries close to ten percent fibre, though you'd never guess it from eating it.

One warning from our own kitchen. The sauce does not last long once it's made. Our two teenage sons have a habit of eating it by the spoonful straight from the pan, pasta or no pasta, so if you're cooking for a crowd, you may want to hide a little of it before anyone else gets near a spoon.

INGREDIENTS

• 400g Carleschi Rivet Rigatoni
• 400ml tin chopped tomatoes
• 2 Italian gluten free plain sausages (not fennel or other flavours)
• 1 small garlic clove, peeled with the germ removed
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 generous pinch of saffron pistils
• 60g freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano
• Sea salt, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Reserved pasta cooking water
• Fresh basil leaves, to finish (optional)

Instructions

• Remove the skins from the sausages and cut the meat into 1cm slices.
• In a frying pan large enough to later hold all the pasta, cook the sausage slices with the garlic clove, cut lengthways into three, over medium to high heat, until the sausage is lightly browned and has rendered its fat. No oil is needed, the sausage provides all the fat this dish requires.
• Remove and discard the garlic, then add the chopped onion to the pan. Keep stirring until the onion has softened and is just about to turn golden.
• Pour in the chopped tomatoes and stir well. Add the basil leaves, a good grinding of black pepper and the saffron pistils, and season with salt.
• Reduce the heat to a minimum and let the sauce simmer gently, reducing until rich and concentrated.
• Bring a large pan of generously salted water to the boil. Add the rigatoni and cook for 9 minutes.
• Just before draining, loosen the sauce to a creamy, slightly watery consistency using a little of the pasta cooking water. Reserve a cup more in case you need it.
• Drain the rigatoni and add it straight into the pan with the sauce. Increase the heat to medium and toss everything together until the pasta is glossy and creamy, adding a splash more pasta water if it needs loosening.
• A small but important tip: don't stir too much here, and don't let this final step run on. From the moment the pasta hits the sauce to the moment it reaches the table, the whole process should take no more than one or two minutes.
• Serve immediately, with a generous grating of Parmigiano Reggiano on top.

Buon appetito!