This is a variation on a Jamie Oliver pasta dish he calls 'Proper Blokes Sausage Fusilli.' Irritating twat. It's really easy, really delicious, and really fattening. The only caveat I'll add is that your arm can get a bit sore with the violent pummelling of the sausage meat, but it's a small price to pay.
Also, I would not recommend refrigerating the leftovers for reheating the following day, as once you do this all the fat solidifies like a lard around it and you are filled with immediate regret for looking and ruining last night's meal, whereas when it's all fresh and new the fat is melted and invisible and so doesn't count.
Takes about 25 mins in total.
INGREDIENTS:
- 2 heaped teaspoons fennel seeds
- 2 red chillies, dried or fresh, doesn't really matter
- packet of good-quality sausages (highly recommend 'The Pure Pork Company,' honestly have never had better sausages that work perfectly in every dish you put them in. I could write a whole sausage blog alone. On second thought, that might end up in wrong search category)
- 1 teaspoon dried oregano
- olive oil
- 2 cloves of garlic, crushed, or garlic paste if you're lazy like me. Actually the paste works better anyway
- glass of white wine
- 500g fusilli (if you want to make a token effort at making this dish slightly healthier use brown pasta)
- sea salt (if you don't yet know about Maldon salt and you like to cook....you're welcome) and freshly ground black pepper.
- knob of butter (or not, again you can leave it out if want)
- some grated Parmesan cheese
- juice and zest of a lemon if you want to freshen it up, not necessary though
- parsley leaves if cooking for others and want to make it more aesthetically pleasing
Crush the fennel seeds in a pestle and mortar. If you're using dried chillies put them in too, otherwise if fresh just chop them up separately.
Heat some olive oil in a deep frying pan or wok. Squeeze the meat out of the gross sausage skins (euckh, what are those things anyway? I've heard rumours but sincerely hope they're not true) throw said skins/casings away, and put the meat into the pan. Make sure you break it up using a fork or spoon into what should eventually look like coarse mince. Keep breaking it up as it's frying, it's a continuous process I'm afraid. This is where your arm can start to hurt and you begin to wish you hadn't bothered - bear with it though, 5 more minutes and you're on the home straight. Add the crushed fennel seeds, garlic/paste and chillies, and cook on a medium heat for around 10 minutes until the meat becomes crisp and browned. Don't overdo it though, you still want some pink in there.
Stir in the oregano, then pour in the white wine and allow it to reduce by half. Add the lemon zest and juice at this point if including, but bear in mind it does strongly flavour the dish to, well, lemon obviously, and can be a bit overpowering. I'd recommend using half a lemon only.
Turn the heat down to low, then cook the fusilli in a large pan of salted boiling water according to the packet instructions. When the pasta has cooked al dente, drain it in a colander, reserving some of the cooking water, and toss it in the pan with your sausagemeat. Coat the pasta in all the pan stuff and at this point add the butter if including, the Parmesan, and a few spoonfuls of the reserved cooking water to moisten things up. You're left with a coating over the pasta as opposed to a sauce. Add more salt and pepper if you wish, and sprinkle with some parsley leaves for decoration cause we all know that's all it's good for.
This is what you should get.
