It starts with a sausage ragù

Hi fam! I’m Em. If we haven’t met yet, you’re in for some pasta.

I’m the pasta chef at Mano Mano Cornuto (Montreal, pull up) and the hands behind @itsonlypasta a project I started during Covid, back when everything was weird and the only thing that made sense was dough.

At first, it was just me and my dad Mario, dropping off handmade pasta around the city like a lowkey Uber Eats. I didn’t think it’d become my whole life. But slowly, the side hustle took over. I quit my job, threw myself into pasta full time, and never looked back.

Fast forward, I’ve done catering gigs, couple collabs and pop-ups, and eventually found myself in this beautifully chaotic kitchen where I cook, mess up, learn, repeat.

One afternoon, Catherine St-Laurent from Mise en Place sat at my bar, and basically gave me a TED talk on substack. I’d never heard of it. But when I checked it out, it felt like the exact thing I didn’t know I needed. A space to slow down, share my recipes, obsess over ingredients, and actually connect with people fr.

So ya, that’s what this space is for.

If you’re tryna level up your pasta game, I gotchu. You’ll find recipes you can throw together in your sweatpants, tips, step-by-step pasta tutorial, all that. Most recipes work with dry pasta too, so no stress if you’re not kneading anything (yet).

Smash that subscribe button and bring water to a boil.

Em

FOR 2

• 250g fresh fusilli

• 2 Italian sausages 

• 1 tsp fennel seeds

• 1 tsp chili flakes

• 1 clove garlic, minced

• ½ cup white wine, optional

• ½ cup heavy cream

• Zest of 1 orange

• 1 cup kale, roughly chopped

• Extra virgin olive oil

• Pecorino Romano, finely grated

HOW

1. Cook the fusilli in salted boiling water until al dente. Reserve ½ cup of pasta water.

2. Remove the sausage casings. With clean hands, break down the sausage meat with the fennel seeds in a bowl.

3. In a pan over medium heat, cook the sausage meat in olive oil until browned and fully cooked, breaking it further with a spoon as needed.

4. Stir in the garlic and cook for another minute. Deglaze the pan with white wine, scraping up any browned bits, and let it reduce slightly.

5. Lower the heat and stir in the heavy cream, half of the orange zest, and kale. Simmer until the kale wilts and the sauce thickens slightly.

6. Toss the cooked fusilli into the pan, adding pasta water as needed to bind.

7. Plate and finish with a drizzle of olive oil, a first snow of Pecorino Romano and the rest of orange zest.

WORD

• You can swap fusilli for any short pasta you fuck with.

• First snow meaning to sprinkle the cheese lightly and evenly on the plate

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