chorizo, broad bean, and tomato pasta

I should probably have two categories on this blog: one for recipes that are safe to follow straight-up, and one for those that need anything between a light spot of tinkering and a full-on rewrite. This is one of the milder of the second category.It's not that this didn't work, exactly, but the balance is way off, and the intended freshness of the tomatoes was present but too muted. Chorizo and tomato more or less always works, though, so this remains a basic win.The TL;DR version: the broad beans get lost, omit them and fuck around with the tomato quantities.Chorizo and broad bean pasta with tomatoesSo, to business.

Ingredients:

  • Broad beans
  • Cooking chorizo (cured would work)
  • Onions
  • Pasta (I used papparedelle)
  • Garlic
  • 2-3 tomatoes
  • Flat leaf parsley
  • An entirely optional splash of wine

Method:

  1. Prepare the broad beans.This is its own set of miserable instructions. You take the little bastards out of the main pod, blanche them for a minute then squeeze them out of the inner shells. If they weren't so delicious there is no way I would ever do this.
  2. Set the sausages frying on low. They'll want something like ten minutes with occasional turning.
  3. While the sausages cook, dice the tomatoes and onions. Slice the garlic, and shred a little parsley. At some point, set water boiling for the pasta.
  4. Add the onions to the cooking sausages and let them soften for a few minutes.
  5. Remove the sausages, let them cool a little, and slice them.
  6. Add the garlic to the onions, and let it soften for a minute or two.
  7. Put the pasta on and add the tomatoes to the onions and garlic.Stir, and let them simmer on low for the pasta's cooking time.
  8. Towards the end, add the sliced sausage back in, and add the parsley, and the slug of wine.
  9. Once the pasta is cooked drain it, and stir everything together, adding the beans, and serve.

The idea here is that the tomatoes should retain a freshness and slight acidity, rather than cooking down completely. The parsley was supposed to help with that. I was shooting for rustic and light with the richness in the chorizo. It nearly worked.Chorizo and broad bean pasta with tomatoesIn practice, the beans got trampled, but the core flavours came together.I'd omit the beans or switch them out for something more robust and a lot quicker to deal with. Parmesan was tempting, but in the end I felt it'd be too much. Finding something simple to do the beans justice is next on the list. Gnocchi, perhaps.

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Broad and green bean gnocchi with goats' cheese

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Quick cauliflower and potato curry