Sausage, Chicory & Kale Gigli

With our Brand New Gigli, this recipe celebrates delicious green winter veg while using your favourite sausages to create a totally comforting December dish. Here in Cumbria we use Cumberland sausages for this recipe, but feel free to use whatever you like here, head to your local butcher and pick their speciality or use leftovers from that big Christmas breakfast...

Sausage, Chicory & Kale Gigli

…deliciously created by Flora Shedden…

90g hazelnuts

400g sausages

90g purple kale (or regular if you cant get your hands on it)

200g chicory

medium handeful of sage leaves

olive oil

salt and pepper

1.5 - 2L vegetable stock 

300g Northern Pasta Gigli

Method

Preheat the oven to 200C.

Place the hazelnuts on a small tray and roast for 7 minutes or until golden, fragrant and skins have become papery. Set aside to cool down.

Place a large frying pan over a high heat.

Break up the sausage and add to the pan in little pieces. Use the back of a wooden spoon to break the sausage down even more until almost minced and stir regularly in order to get an even amount of colour on the sausage meat. Turn the heat down to medium and allow to cook until dark golden and caramelised. 

Whilst the sausages are cooking remove the stalks from the kale and finely slice them. Roughly chop the leaves and set aside.

Add the stalks to the pan alongside the whole sage leaves and a generous amount of olive oil. Cook until the kale stalks have softened and the sage is fragrant and beginning to crisp up.

Cut the chicory into 2cm chunks and discard the bitter end. Add to the pan with the kale leaves and turn the heat down to low.

Place the stock in a large pan and bring to the boil. 

Add the gigli and cook for 4 minutes or until very al dente.

Add a few ladlefuls of the starchy stock to the sausage mix and season. 

Strain the pasta, keeping excess stock to loosen the sauce if required.

Add the stock, parmesan and butter to the pan and mix everything together until you have a silky sauce. You can add more stock if required.

Rub the hazelnuts to remove their skins then roughly bash with a pestle and mortar. Add half of the nuts to the pan and stir through.

To serve, spoon the pasta onto plates then garnish with some oil, parmesan and the remaining crushed nuts.