Sausage & Broccoli Orecchiette

📝 Ingredients

• 320 g dried orecchiette
• 4 Toulouse sausages (about 100 g each)
• 1 head of broccoli (about 500 g)
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 150 ml pasta cooking water (100 ml for the sauce, 50 ml for binding the pasta)
• 40 g grated Parmesan (20 g in the pan, 20 g for serving)
• ½ unwaxed lemon (for the zest)
• Salt, black pepper

🍴 Utensils

• Large saucepan
• Large frying pan or sauté pan
• Slotted spoon
• Colander
• Fine grater
• Wooden spatula

📖 Steps

1. Bring a large pan of water to the boil and salt it generously, about 10 g salt per litre. Meanwhile, cut the broccoli into small florets; peel the stalk with a knife and dice it: it's just as good as the florets.
2. Drop the broccoli into the boiling water and cook for 5 minutes until really tender when pierced with the tip of a knife: it needs to be soft enough to crush. Lift it out with the slotted spoon and keep the water on the heat for the pasta.
3. Slit the sausage skins lengthways and remove them. Heat the oil in the frying pan over a medium-high heat, add the sausage meat in large chunks and let it brown for 6 to 8 minutes, breaking it up with the spatula, until well coloured.
4. Meanwhile, cook the orecchiette in the broccoli water for 1 minute less than the packet instructions. Before draining, scoop out 150 ml of the cooking water: its starch will bind the sauce and make it creamy.
5. Peel and thinly slice the garlic, add it to the sausage and cook for 1 minute over a medium heat, stirring, without letting it brown. Add the broccoli and roughly crush it with a fork or the spatula, right in the pan.
6. Pour in 100 ml of the cooking water and simmer for 2 minutes, scraping the bottom of the pan to lift the caramelised bits: you should end up with a thick green sauce with a few pieces of broccoli still in it.
7. Add the drained orecchiette to the pan over a low heat, along with 20 g Parmesan. Stir for 1 minute, adding the rest of the cooking water a little at a time, until the sauce coats every piece of pasta without being runny.
8. Grate the zest of the half lemon over the pan, season with pepper and taste before adding salt: the sausage and Parmesan are already salty. Serve immediately, with the rest of the Parmesan to sprinkle over each plate.