With winter comes comfort food, the down side of the desire for warming rich flavours is time, usually the comfort comes from rich unctuous stews and slow cooks, sure you can cheat with a pressure cooker and little tricks, but it’s not quite the same. Thankfully there are a few dishes that really fulfil that winter rich dish feel and don’t take hours to prepare, there is risotto or other creamy rice dishes, always a crowd pleaser, or you can get really quick and indulgent with the dish pictured above, a simple pasta dish that packs a unctuous punch and is deep in flavour.
There are only a few ingredients in this dish, the main one being sausages, it’s important to spend that little bit extra and get good quality ones with high meat content, sausages shouldn’t be viewed as cheap or budget, unless we’re talking about cocktail wieners then I say cheaper the better. The sausage is also a good place to inject a bit of extra flavour into the dish, I used some good quality pork with fennel with great success, don’t be afraid to experiment.
Pasta is another quick way to change up the dish easily, my go to dried pasta for this is the little ears of orecchiette or shells of conchiglie, if I’m feeling particularly virtuous or ambitious for a throw together meal I’d make the orecchiette myself or make a batch of roasted rye cavatelli, but all and all dried pasta is good, it’s easy, and that’s what this is meant to be, a quick and easy throw together that packs a punch of flavour.
Ingredients
Pasta
3 Sausages, removed from casing.
Basil, handful of leaves sliced
Red onion, thinly sliced
Cream
Garlic, crushed
Chilli flakes, optional
Get a pot of heavily salted water on the to boil, and I mean really get it salty, we want the pasta seasoned well. Cook the pasta according to the packet minus a minute.
Put a heavy based pan on a medium high heat, and break the sausage meat in to the pan while still heating, as the pan heats it will help release the fat from the force meat, leave it to brown, resist the temptation to stir, I like it to sit until it has a nice brown crust and then break it up.
When the meat is thoroughly browned, with crisp crunchy bits and is almost cooked add in the crushed garlic clove, and chilli flakes. When the garlic is cooked, lower the heat and add in a good splash of cream, about 150ml, add most of the basil and stir through. Let it cook for a couple of minutes. Taste and season with salt and pepper.
The pasta should be cooked by now, so strain and dump into the sauce, give it a good stir through and cook for the remaining minute.
Serve with a grate of sharp cheese, garnished with the reserved basil and thinly sliced onion.
