Vodka, chilli, sausage arrabiata with spaghetti

I don't often blog recipes, usually because we're working through a growing mountain of recipe books and magazines, so usually, I can't take credit. I can't wholly take credit for this one either though. It's inspired by Jamie Oliver's vodka arrabiata in his America cookbook. I've made a few tweaks though and I think this version tastes even better! Plus an instagram follower asked me to blog it, so here we go:

Ingredients (serves 2):

• 3 sausages (I used Debbie and Andrews gluten free ones)
• 1/2 red onion, finely chopped
• 1 red pepper, sliced
• 2 red chillies, finely chopped (de-seed if you don't like it hot!)
• 2 anchovy fillets
• 150g cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 30ml vodka
• 1 tbsp tomato purée
• Small bunch of parsley, stalks finely chopped and leaves picked
• 150g spaghetti (I used Juvela gluten free spaghetti)

Put a frying pan on a medium heat. Put a slit in the sausages and squeeze out the sausage meat into the pan. As it fries, break it up with a wooden spoon, moving it around so it browns evenly. This should take around 4 or 5 mins. Next, add the red onion, chilli and red pepper (add a little oil if needed) and soften for a further 3 mins. Now add the anchovy fillets, break these up with the spoon, then add your tomato purée. Now it's time to add the vodka, cherry tomatoes and parsley stalks. Reduce the heat to simmer whilst you cook your pasta. Drop your pasta into a large pan of boiling water and boil for 8 - 10 mins or according to the packet. Add a couple of tablespoons of the cooking water from the pasta to the tomato sauce just to give it the right consistency. When the pasta is cooked, drain and add the pasta to the tomato and sausage sauce and mix well. Spoon into bowls and sprinkle over the parsley.

Enjoy!

Perfect Pulled Pork!

There are a lot of great things to come out of America, but in the culinary world, it has to be pulled pork. The pork is cooked slowly at a low temperature which means it becomes deliciously tender and full of flavour.

I made up my own BBQ marinade from a whole host of ingredients I found in our cupboard but any BBQ marinade will do, just make sure there’s plenty of it! I used the following ingredients: Jamie Oliver’s BBQ rub, smoked paprika, chilli flakes, dark brown sugar, honey, red wine vinegar, tamari sauce, chilli oil and salt and pepper. Really the best thing to do is to make it to taste, so keep trying it. You want a consistency that you can smear all over your Pork. I used a Pork shoulder (about 1.6kg). I smothered it in the BBQ marinade and placed it on a roasting tray and wrapped the tray in foil. I then put this in a pre-heated oven at about 140 (fan) for about 4.5 hours. When your timer goes, unwrap the foil (be prepared for the amazing smell) and tempting though it is to tuck in, put it back in the oven for a final 45 minutes uncovered. When it’s ready, place it on a chopping board and put one fork through the shoulder and pull away with another. You’ll find that the Pork easily shreds. Smother over any of the left marinade in the bottom of the roasting tin.

For a full America feast, serve with sweet potato wedges, creamy coleslaw, BBQ beans and corn on the cob. Fantastic and simple recipe for easily one of my favourite meals!

Amazing Ribs!

One of my favourite foods has to be ribs, and when they're done well, they are truly awesome! I've been to the home of great ribs, America, a couple of times and had some incredibly tasty, BBQ ribs. There's a show on Good Food which has a bit of a cult following, Man vs Food. We were lucky enough to visit a place called Papy's Smokehouse in St Louis Missouri, which featured on the show. It was an hour and a half wait in the Missouri midday sun but it was worth it, some great BBQ smoked ribs. Jamie Oliver's Barbecoa also did some of the best ribs I've ever tasted, equally as smoky but with a punch of heat as well.

Food at Papy's Smokehouse - seriously worth the wait!

But if you want to cook some truly great ribs at home, which my girlfriend did last night, then this is a great recipe from Delicious Magazine - Sticky Spare Ribs. We don't have a pressure cooker, so did them in the oven and got some truly great results. Unfortunately they were gone too quick for me to even take a photo, so you'll just have to trust me on this one!

We served them with Jamie Oliver's Fiery Dan Dan Noddle recipe. I've made this before and it's a great recipe with bags of flavour. We obviously made it without the crispy beef as we had the ribs instead and they worked great together. For any gluten free readers, we substituted the wheat noodles for rice noodles; just make sure you adjust the cooking time. Enjoy!