Pasta with Borlotti Beans and Sausages
This satisfying, filling dish is just the thing to warm and fill you up on a cold winter night. The addition of Italian-style pork, fennel and chilli sausages gives it a bit of punch.
Inroduction
About this Recipe
By: Sheridan Rogers
Look for short pasta such as fusilli 3 colour, cavatelli, or penne rigate. Remove the sausage skins by snipping the sausage at one end and squeezing the filling out between your thumb and forefinger. Make sure you break up any lumps with a fork.
This one is from my Food Year (Simon & Schuster) cookbook.
Ingredients
Serves 4
- olive oil, 4 tablespoons
- onion, 1 medium, diced
- carrot, 1 medium, diced
- celery, 1 stalk, diced
- garlic, 2-3 cloves, crushed
- Italian fennel and chilli sausages 4, skins removed (see method)
- chopped Italian tomatoes, 1 x 400g tin
- fresh oregano or parsley, 1 tablespoon, chopped
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- borlotti beans, 1 x 400g tin
- small pasta (such as fusilli 3 colour, cavatelli, or penne rigate), 400g
- fresh parmesan, grated
- fresh Italian parsley, chopped, for garnish
Heat the oil in a large frying pan, add the onion, carrot, celery and garlic and cook until softened. Add the sausage meat (see below) and fry for a few minutes, breaking up the meat with a fork. Add the tomatoes and cook over medium-low heat for about 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally. Stir in herbs of choice and season to taste. Add the beans along with some of the liquid and simmer for about 10 minutes, adding water (or a little white wine) if mixture is getting dry.
Meanwhile, cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water, following manufacturers instructions. Drain the pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of the pasta cooking water. Return pasta to pot, add reserved pasta cooking water and sausage-tomato mixture and toss to combine with a pasta spoon.
Serve in warm bowls sprinkled with freshly grated parmesan and chopped parsley.