Spice, sausages and pasta - could it really be bad?

Jamie Oliver strikes again with a fantastically simple pasta dish. The key here is to buy the best sausages you can lay your mitts on – think coarse meat, good seasoning and a high meat content. The cheaper the sausage, the less likely you are to get the texture needed here. You could also use pork mince here, as in fact what you will be using is the sausage meat, without the skin. You need to disgard the skin before cooking in order to break the meat up.   So if you would prefer to make your own sausage meat, go right ahead. I used shop-bought organisc sausages and de-skinned them. 

The de-skinned sausage meat is added to a heated pan with a splash of olive oil. It is then broken up with a wooden spoon, until it resembles coarsely chopped mince meat. Once adequately squished, fennel seeds and dried chillis are added. I used a sufficiently fiery birds eye chilli (3 of them to be precise) and a teaspoon of fennel seeds. Bash them together, either in a pestle and mortar or in bowl using the business end of a rolling pin (my preferred method). Throw them in the pan and continue to stir and bash at the mince until it becomes even more mince-like. Cook on a medium heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally so the meat has a chance to brown and crisp up. Once it looks really well broken down, golden and caramelised, chuck in a glass of white wine, a pinch of dried oregano, and let that cook down slightly until half of the liquid has evaporated. Use a full-bodied white wine or you won’t taste it in the finished dish. Once cooked down, grate in some lemon zest and add the juice of half the lemon. 

The above picture shows the sausage meat after 15 minutes in the pan. Wine has been added and allowed to reduce until only a intensely savoury puddle remains. Be sure to taste it at this point - not for any other reason than it is utterly delicious.

Leave this to cook on the lowest heat, and boil your fusili. I used fresh, shop-bought pasta and cooked it for 3.5 minutes on a high heat, with a splash of olive oil and a pinch of salt added to the water. Once cooked, scoop out a small cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the pasta and throw it i the pan with the sausage meat mixture. Add a cup of grated parmesan cheese, a knob of butter, ground black pepper, a handful of freshly chopped parsley, and the pasta cooking water. The cooking water contains starch from the pasta, and this is what helps the sausage mixture stick to the pasta. Serve with fresh parmesan shavings on top, and a bit more chopped parsley.

My partner has told me that this is his new favourite pasta dish. The great thing is it's so easy to make and once you had a stock of the herbs, chillis and larder products needed for this, individual servings will be cheap and cheerful. I won't deny this isn't calorie-laden, but it's comforting and delicious, and sometimes that's the nourishment we need. I recommend eating this from a bowl whilst swathed in a warm duvet. The full ingredients list and recipe can be found on Jamie Oliver's recipe: http://www.jamieoliver.com/recipes/pasta-recipes/proper-blokes-sausage-fusilli