Servings
4
Ready In:
15mins
Good For:
Brunch, lunch or dinner
Ingredients
- 4-5 cooked sausages- any flavour (I used pork and herb)- sliced into thin pieces
- 500g penne pasta
- 1 onion-finely chopped
- 2 cloves garlic-crushed
- 1 lrg courgette- cut into 1cm dice
- 350ml water
- 2tsp chicken stock powder
- 40g parmesan-grated
- 30g butter
- 30ml olive oil
- 1/2 tsp fresh thyme-chopped
- 2 spring onion- sliced thinly
- black pepper and salt to season
- extra virgin olive oil to serve
Step by Step Instructions
Step 1
I had left-over cooked sausages from brunch to use up but this dish can easily be made with fresh raw sausages.
Let’s start by placing a large pot of salted water on to boil. Put a lid on the pot as it comes to a boil.
Step 2
In a large frying pan over a high heat, add olive oil and heat for 2mins. Add the onions, season, and fry for 2-3mins until lightly brown. Add the courgette and garlic (and if using raw sausages add them now), season and cook for a further 2mins, add sausages and cook for 2mins while tossing or stirring the mixture.
Step 3
Add the pasta to the boiling water and during the cooking period ensure to stir the pasta ever few minutes to prevent it sticking together.
Step 4
Back to the pasta sauce- add thyme, stock powder and water to the sausages, lower the heat to medium, and cook until the sauce has reduced by half (approximately 3-4mins). As soon as it’s reduced, adjust for seasoning and add half the parmesan and all the butter. Remove from the heat and stir through. Add the spring onion.
Step 5
Once the pasta is cooked to al dente or firm to the bite, strain into a colander. Pour the pasta onto the sausage and courgette sauce and move the pan onto a high heat.Over a high heat toss and stir the pasta and sauce together while reducing the sauce to coat the pasta (approximately 2mins).
Taste for seasoning and then add the rest of the parmesan, stir through and season with black pepper.
Leave the pasta in the pan for at least 1minute before serving. This will enable the pasta to soak up more of the sauce thus making the dish taste far superior.
After serving I sprinkle extra virgin olive oil over the dish and then twist black pepper on top.
Step 6
I don’t know why people think most pasta dishes are made with either tomato or cream sauces. My last partner of 15years is Italian and I know the cuisine very well indeed, in fact it’s one of my favourite cuisines and I can tell you that most pasta dishes in Italy use stock based sauces finished with olive oil and sometimes butter.
Step 7
We’ve used parmesan in this dish as it’s more readily available but in fact you can use pecorino cheese.
Pecorino is a sheep’s cheese that like parmesan is matured for approximately 18months. I actually prefer pecorino in pasta to parmesan.
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