Making Sicilian Sausage & Fennel Pasta

When in Sicily it is such a temptation to eat out in tempting trattorias and restaurants all the time but I also really do enjoy cooking in my Sicilian kitchen and trying new recipes. I have always loved Italian food and always dreamed of having a Mediterranean kitchen so when we bought our Sicilian home in 2007 finally I had the Mediterranean kitchen that I always dreamed of and it is an absolute pleasure to cook whilst looking out to the sea and I have my barbecue grill outside the door on the balcony which wafts amazing smells up to the roof terrace where my husband is hungrily waiting to eat.

I am not a chef I am a home cook and I have self taught myself through family and friends, cooking classes and recipes I discover online.

One of my favourite things to eat and something I am addicted to is Salsiccia, Sicilian sausage.

If I had my way I would eat it every day and would probably end up looking like one.

When my “adopted” Sicilian big brother came to stay with us in London I worried about what I was going to cook for a Sicilian man every day, especially one that is a fantastic cook (Don’t tell him I told you that). One evening I decided on an English country style sausage casserole. After serving the sausages on his plate he started to scrape the entire dish back into my casserole pot.

“These are not sausages they are disgusting”.

I agree with him in some way, but you cannot compare English sausages with Sicilian sausages.They are like chalk and cheese.

Sicilian sausages are thin or thick and made from coarsely chopped pork and most often include fennel seeds (I love the taste of fennel, it is pure Sicily).They were once described as al punto del coltello, hacked sausage, as the meat was painstakingly cut into little pieces.

In smaller villages in Sicily it is not unusual to see Sicilians standing in the butchers watching to ensure that their salsiccia is made to their favourite family secret recipe.

Often the meat is a combination of pork and veal whilst others might include a mixture of cheese, sundried tomatoes and white wine or just plain with parsley. The mixture should not be too fatty or too lean. So the best thing to do for a Sicilian is to watch the butcher make them to ensure you do not end up with an inferior recipe.

Sicilians love their sausages.

In Eastern Sicily the sausages are usually produced from the black pigs of the Nebrodi mountains.

In the street markets and butchers shops in Sicily they are sold skewered in continuous coils by weight and the best way to cook them is alla bracie, grilled on a barbeque.

The salsiccia is quite versatile and one thing it does do is make a wonderful ragù sauce by removing the skins and crumbling the meat, something we cannot do with the consistency of English sausages.

One of my favourite flavours in Sicily is fennel or in Italian finocchio.

Fennel is a flowering plant species. It is a hardy perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves and it is indigenous to the shores of the Mediterranean. It is a highly aromatic and flavourful herb used in Sicilian cookery and it has a swollen bulb like stem base that is used as a vegetable.

In Sicily wild fennel grows everywhere, by the sea, in the mountains, in pastures and along roadsides and motorways. It sprouts up in early Spring and blossoms into yellow flowers that yield seeds which propagate well which is why you see this plant in such abundance across the island. The scent of sweet fennel fills the Sicilian air at springtime. I was once told by a local guide that some of the bulbs buried deep underground can be the size of footballs. The taller the plant the bigger the bulb, but do not worry you do not have to dig up your own fennel as you will find plenty in Sicily's street markets or in local supermarkets.

The bulb, foliage and seeds of the plant are used in many of the culinary traditional dishes of Sicily. The small flowers are the most potent. Fennel seeds are an aromatic anise flavoured spice and are usually harvested by hand. The fronds, known as wild fennel, are delicately flavoured and similar in shape to those of dill. They have a texture that is quite feathery and I am sure if you tickled someone with them it would make them giggle. Wild fennel in Sicily is also known as Buzbiez, a word thought to be from Arabic times. It was most probably the Arabs who brought fennel to the island. The bulb is a crisp vegetable that can be sautéed, stewed, braised, grilled or eaten raw. It is delicious with a slightly sweet, almost liquorice-y flavour. I once was gifted a jar of Sicilian Orange and Fennel Marmalade by the lovely Rita Russotto, owner of Gli Aromi, a Mediterranean herb farm near Scicli, and it compliments cheeses perfectly.

Pork and fennel are a perfect combination …

I love experimenting with new recipes and trying out new pasta sauces so when I saw a recipe online by Delicious Magazine for Sausage, Fennel and Mascarpone Orzo, it was the perfect opportunity to create a similar dish this spring in my Sicilian kitchen. I adapted the ingredients and recipe a little bit.

Was it a success? Was it delicious? Hell yes!

The recipe uses 100g of mascarpone and as the pot I had purchased from my local delicatessen was 250g I utilised the remaining mascarpone to create a lovely light Sicilian lemon dessert by simply adding sugar and lemon zest.

Perfecto !!!!!!

If you fancy giving this pasta dish a try here is the recipe, I have replaced the Orzo with Gnocchetti Sardi which is in fact a pasta from the island of Sardinia. Gnocchetti in Sardinian means "small gnocchi", they are mini pasta shells perfect for a sausage ragù. I chose a bronze die cut pasta which absorbs sauce effectively, improving the mouthfeel and flavour of pasta dishes. I also replaced the garlic cloves with a chopped fennel bulb.

Ingredients: for 2 people

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1/2 tsp Fennel Seeds

1 Fennel Bulb (Chopped)

500g Sicilian Sausage

150ml Dry White Wine

400g Tin of Chopped Tomatoes

100g of Mascarpone

A Pinch of Chilli Flakes

1 tsp Oregano

200g of Pasta

Zest of one Lemon and Sugar for my dessert

Recipe:

Heat the oil in a wide frying pan over a medium heat and add the fennel seeds. Once sizzling add the chopped fennel and chilli flakes and cook for 5 minutes. Meanwhile split open the sausage and discard the skin.

Add the sausage meat to the pan and use a spoon to break it up into a fine even mince as it cooks. Turn the heat up to medium-high and cook for 8 minutes until it is golden brown and starting to crisp.

Pour in the wine, scraping up any bits that are stuck to the pan, then leave to bubble until almost all the liquid has evaporated. Add the chopped tomatoes and simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile cook the pasta as advised on the packet.

Stir the mascarpone through the sauce. Add the pasta and season with salt and pepper then transfer to a serving bowl topped with wild fennel fronds.

Lemon Dessert (made earlier) …

Put the remaining mascarpone in a bowl, add spoons of sugar to your own sweet tooth taste and add lemon zest, give it a good mix and pop into serving dishes and top with more lemon zest for decoration. Chill for a few hours.

Buon appetito !!!!!!

Recipe Credit: www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk