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Category: dinner

Ingredients

  • 2 dried red chillies (or use red pepper flakes, 1 Tbsp)
  • 2 heaped teaspoons fennel seeds
  • olive oil
  • 600 g quality Italian sausages, Cumberland sausages or higher-welfare pork mince
  • 1 tablespoon dried oregano
  • 250 ml white wine
  • 1 lemon
  • 500 g fusilli or penne
  • 20 g Parmesan cheese, plus extra for serving
  • ½ a bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley (15g)

Instructions

  1. Boil a pot of salted water for pasta. Cook to your liking as you prepare the sauce.
  2. Crumble the chillies into a pestle and mortar, then bash with the fennel seeds until coarsely crushed. Put to one side.
  3. Heat a glug of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed frying pan over a high heat. Squeeze the meat out of the sausage skins or add the pork mince to the pan, breaking it up with the back of a wooden spoon. Fry for a few minutes, or until the meat starts to color and the fat has rendered slightly, then push it down once more so it resembles coarse mince. You’re going for a nice char on the one side of the meat.
  4. Add the bashed-up fennel seeds and chillies and cook over a medium heat for around 10 minutes, or until the meat becomes crisp, golden brown and slightly caramelised.
  5. Stir in the oregano, then pour in the white wine and deglaze the pan. Allow it to reduce by half. Finely grate over the zest of 1 lemon, then squeeze over the juice and turn the heat down to low.
  6. When the pasta has cooked but still has a bit of bite, drain it in a colander, reserving a mugful of the cooking water. Add the pasta to the meat pan, then toss to coat, loosening with a good splash of the reserved cooking water, if needed.
  7. Grate in the Parmesan, then pick, roughly chop and add the parsley leaves. Taste and check the seasoning, then serve immediately with a little extra grated Parmesan sprinkled over the top.

Tags: pasta / sausage / jamie-oliver