Italian sausage spaghetti

Heat a little olive oil in the sauce pot over medium heat and brown the four sausage links about five minutes per side, lid on, until beautifully browned and just barely cooked through.

Turn off the heat, move the sausages to a plate and let them cool completely before cutting them.

Raise the heat to medium-high, pour in about a quarter cup of white wine and scrape the caramelized bits off the bottom to deglaze; simmer about a minute until it reduces by about half.

Add four cups of prepared pasta sauce plus about one third that volume of cold water, used to rinse out the jar, and stir.

Once it comes back to a simmer, reduce the heat to low.

Cut each cooled sausage into four pieces, trimming off the knotted casing if it bothers you.

Add the sausage to the simmering sauce with every accumulated juice from the plate and the cutting board.

Raise the heat to a very gentle but steady simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, for one and a half hours, which infuses the sauce with the sausage and transforms the sausage texturally.

At about the one hour mark skim off about half the pork fat floating on top, leaving some for flavour.

Simmer another half hour, by which point the added water has boiled out and the sauce is thick; add a splash of water if it reduced too far.

Boil a pound of thick spaghetti in very well salted water, one minute less than the package says, and drain it.

Transfer the pasta straight into the pot of hot sauce, mix thoroughly, put the lid on and let it sit one minute so the pasta absorbs the sauce.

Serve four portions with four pieces of sausage each, finished with freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano and a sprinkling of Italian parsley.