Everything but Beetroot

My partner is away on business at the moment so I’m looking for things I can cook quickly without compromising on taste, and this fits the bill.

Ingedients

• 3 pork sausages
• handful of cherry tomatoes
• fresh sage
• penne pasta
• Parmesan & black pepper

Method

Pre-heat your oven to 200C.  Take the skin off the sausages and break the meat into rough balls.  Put them, the cherry tomatoes and fresh sage in a roasting tray along with a drizzle of olive oil, and cook for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile cook the pasta.

Once cooked mix together and serve.

sausage-and-sage-pasta [pdf]

This is a slight reworking of a Nigel Slater classic. Just so easy to do and with such a good result it’s a real winner.

Ingredients

• Pasta for 2 people
• 4 sausages
• a glass of white wine
• 2 small chillies, finely chopped
• 1 small handful of basil, chopped
• 3 teaspoons of Dijon mustard
• Natural yoghurt

Method

Put the water on for the pasta and when boiling add the pasta.

Heat up a little oil in a large frying pan.  Cut off the skins of the sausages and crumble the meat into the frying pan.  Fry the meat for about 5 minutes then add the wine.  After about a minute add the chilli, basil and mustard.  Stir in the yoghurt and allow to simmer for about 2 minutes.

Drain the pasta and serve.

Sausage and Pasta [pdf]

A few words on the topic of the brands of spaghetti, a completely overlooked but important consideration that is never done but should be as an excellent pasta pushes up a dish towards excellence whilst a mediocre pasta will make a mediocre dish even served with a wonderful sauce.

I’m quite sure that it’s not me but that most brands, including many leading Italian brands, changed the variety of the flour they use to make spaghetti that are almost impossible to overcook.

My advice is: use a brand that can overcook if you forget them on the fire and pay attention to the clock when you cook them. That’s what divides the boys from the men. Spaghetti that can’t overcook just don’t taste right, they’re not lame, they’re incomplete.

Proper spaghetti should cook in 8 minutes, take them off at 7:30 or even 7, they’re “al dente”, that’s how they’re supposed to be. They will keep on cooking even in the plate. The only way to stop them cooking is to pour cold water over them, but you don’t want to do that. My favourite brand is Pezzullo, it’s very popular in the south of Italy and completely unknown in the north, where I come from. I discovered it just 10 years ago, a tip from a friend of mine from Naples. Here in Lewisham I buy it from Gennaro Delicatessen. I hope this last bit doesn’t look like a shameless plug, it’s not, that’s the best pasta I know and if you live round here that’s the only place you can get it from.

This is a very quick and simple seafood dish of divine sweetness.

The first thing to do is to put the clams in cold water and sea salt and leave them peacefully in the fridge for a few hours, the longer the better, this allows them get rid of the inevitable sand that they contain. Wash them thoroughly under running water before cooking.

Finely chop abundant garlic and stir fry it together with some chili in extra virgin olive oil at very low fire. Just before the garlic starts changing its white colour to golden pour a glass of dry white wine (I use Chardonnay) and a couple of spoonfuls of grated bread.

Raise the fire to the maximum and let the alcohol evaporate for a minute, add the clams, put the lead over the pot and reduce the fire to medium. It takes about three to four minutes for the clams to cook completely. Once they’re cooked they open up. If you open the lead and see that they haven’t opened… put it right back and wait another minute!

As they open up they release their juices and at the end of the process they will be swimming in a sublime sauce, ready to be added to the pasta.

It may be that a couple of them don’t open at all, don’t force their shells to eat them, it means that they were already dead when they went into the pot and they’re better left alone.

Anyway, that’s the whole recipe, easy isn’t it? Just drain the spaghetti, add the sauce and sprinkle with chopped flat parsley.

To have the pasta and the sauce ready at the same time I switch the fire under the garlic as I pour the pasta into the water.

I’ve tended to be a stickler for tradition when it comes to pesto – basil or die – but this has changed my mind.

For four people you’d need:

• a butternut squash
• an aubergine
• 150g of parmesan
• a garlic clove
• a couple of handfuls of pine nuts
• olive oil

Pre-heat the oven to 200C and while it’s heating up peel, take the seeds out of, and cube the butternut squash. Put it into a roasting tin and drizzle with olive oil. Put the tin into the oven and cook for about 10 minutes.

Prick the aubergine all over with a fork and rub olive oil into the skin. Add it to the squash and keep cooking for another 25 minutes.

Meanwhile grate the parmesan and put the water on to boil for the pasta. Cook the pasta when the water starts to boil.

When the veg are cooked (soft) put them in a food processor with the cheese, garlic and pine nuts. Whiz it up and when smooth start adding olive oil until the mixture has the consistency you want.

Add the pesto to the drained pasta and mix together.

Serve.

You might also want to add a chilli to the pesto if you’re that way inclined.

Squash and Aubergine Pesto [pdf]