Grilled Chicken. Fennel. Pear. Arugula. White balsamic with pecan oil dressing.
Where this dish comes from
Pappardelle — wide, flat egg pasta ribbons from Tuscany — takes its name from the Italian verb pappare, meaning "to gobble up." The pasta has been made in Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna since at least the medieval period, traditionally paired with rich meat ragùs (wild boar is the classic pairing in Tuscany). The combination with a fennel-forward white sausage ragù brings together two ingredients that are deeply linked in Italian culinary culture — pork and fennel have been paired in Italian charcuterie and cooking since Roman times, when fennel seeds were used extensively in sausage making.
Cheffy’s note
The width of pappardelle determines the type of sauce it needs — wide ribbons demand a sauce with texture and substance that can cling between the folds. A thin, liquid sauce slides off. This ragù bianca has the right consistency: thick, meaty, and clingy. The fennel fronds at the very end are not garnish — they provide a burst of fresh anise flavor that the cooked fennel in the ragù has lost through extended cooking.