Recipe | Sausage & kale orecchiette

It’s time for the first recipe of 2017 from the talented Kym Grimshaw of food blog On the Plate, and I’m particularly excited about this one as it uses my favourite pasta: orecchiette.

I first sampled orecchiette (Italian for ‘little ears’) on Rome’s Piazza Navona at the age of 17, when I was travelling around Italy between school and university. It was served with butternut squash and grated almonds, and it was one of the tastiest things I’d ever eaten. I kept an eye out for it once I got back to the UK, but it was fairly hard to find back then. Luckily, it’s a lot easier to track down nowadays, and it has a wonderfully meaty texture that works brilliantly in hearty winter dishes. This one uses sausages and kale, and it’s delicious. Over to Kym for the details…

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 6 sausages
• 200g kale, thick stems removed and roughly torn
• 400g orecchiette
• 2 big garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 140g sun-dried tomatoes in oil, chopped
• 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes
• parmesan to serve (optional)
• a little olive oil for frying

Method 

1. Cook the pasta according to the pack instructions. Once it’s done, drain and set aside.
2. Heat a non-stick pan on a medium to high heat, and cut the sausages into bite-size pieces. When the pan is hot, add a small drizzle of olive oil and fry the sausages until browned and cooked through.
3. When the sausages are cooked, add the kale to the pan. Stir the kale through the sausages and allow to cook for a few minutes until it has wilted slightly.
4. Add the sun-dried tomatoes with a tablespoon of their oil, along with the garlic and chilli flakes. Continue to cook for a couple more minutes until the garlic is golden and the flavours have infused.
5. Stir the pasta into the pan and serve with a fine grating of parmesan.

Kym will be back with another delicious recipe next month. And as always, there’s plenty more food inspiration over on her blog.

All photography by Kym Grimshaw