Beef sausages with pasta

Serves

Prep Time

Cook Time

Ingredients

6 Beef sausages (plain or flavoured)

500g Tortigliono pasta (Tortigliono is a narrow, tubular pasta shape. Penne, rigatoni or other chunky pasta shapes could also be used.)

1 tbsp Olive oil

1 medium Onion, chopped

8 medium Roma tomatoes, chopped

2 tsp Sugar

½ cup Basil leaves

½ cup Freshly grated parmesan

Cook sausages in the oven (see tip below). Put a large pot of water on to boil. Heat oil in a frypan, add onion, and cook until it is soft and golden.
Place pasta in boiling water to cook. Add the tomatoes and sugar to frypan. Cook until tomatoes are just softened. Remove frypan from heat. Slice cooked sausages. Take about half a cup of cooking water from the pasta pot, set it aside.
Drain pasta. Return pasta to pot, add sliced sausages, tomato mixture and a little of the reserved cooking water. Add basil leaves and toss to mix.
Sprinkle with parmesan to serve.

Cooking sausages in the oven is one of the easiest ways to cook sausages is in the oven (it also makes less mess). Preheat the oven to 180°C. Put a sheet of baking paper on a large oven tray, place sausages on tray, leave a little room around each sausage. Roast sausages for 15 minutes or until cooked. Shake the oven tray from time to time toturn the sausages so they brown evenly.
It's true, sausages contain a little fat , this gives them some of their flavour and keeps them moist. The tip for cooking sausages is not to pierce them before or during cooking. If you prick good quality sausages you let all the moisture and the flavour out.
Cook them slowly over a moderate heat. If you cook them too fast over too high a heat the skins may burst.