Seasonal local food recipe No.312 – Nigel’s sausage meatballs with leek tagliatelle
This recipe is taken from The Guardian in Nigel Slater’s midweek dinner series. I changed the quantities slightly as I find Nigel often uses too much cream for my tastes, missed out the dill as I didn’t have any and cut down on the amount of sausage. Still tasted good though!
Serves 2
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 25 minutes
Ingredients
6 butchers sausages
1-2 tsp dried chilli flakes
2 heaped tsp chopped fresh dill
1-2 leeks, sliced into 1 cm discs
2 Tbsp olive oil
150 g tagliatelle
100 ml double cream
salt and pepper
a handful of chopped fresh parsley
Method
Remove the sausage meat from the skins, place in a mixing bowl and mix with the chilli flakes and dill. Divide the mixture into small balls (I aim to get 4 balls from each sausage) and flatten slightly. Warm the olive oil in a shallow pan. Brown the balls on both sides then leave over a low heat, covered, until cooked right through – about 4-5 minutes.
Remove the balls from the pan, then add the leeks and let them cook in the pan juices for 7-8 minutes until soft and tender. Meanwhile, bring a large pan of salted water to the boil, cook the tagliatelle until tender, then drain.
Stir the cream into the leeks, season with salt, pepper and parsley then add the drained pasta to the leeks. Return the sausage balls to the pan and let everything bubble for a minute or so, then serve.
