fennel and sausage pasta

 Feeds - 4

Preparation time - 10 minutes
Cooking time - 20 minutes

Ingredients - 
generous glug of olive oil
1 onion - finely diced
2 cloves of garlic - minced

350g pork mince or sausages - OR whatever vegetarian/vegan sausages you like - roughly chopped or removed from skins (the best quality you can afford)
2 heaped tsp fennel seeds - roughly muddled
1/2 tsp chilli flakes (optional, if you like spice)

large glass of white wine
bunch of spinach / around 100g - washed
generous sprinkle of sea salt flakes 
several turns of freshly ground black pepper
small bunch of parsley - finely chopped 
zest of 1/2 lemon

400-500g pasta of your choice - I use orecchiette 

30g - Pecorino/parmesan or a vegetarian/vegan alternative 
Optional - Garlic crumb Ingredients 
2 slices of stale bread - blitzed or roughly chopped into small crumbs
generous glug of oil
2 cloves of garlic - grated/minced
sprinkle of sea salt flakes

Instructions - 
Begin by bringing a large pan of generously salted water to the boil for your pasta.

In a small frying pan heat a glug of olive oil, place over a medium to low heat and add in your finely diced onion. Allow to cook for 6-7 minutes until translucent and soft. When it’s almost done add in the the grated garlic.

In a large frying pan or casserole dish add several glugs of olive oil and heat over a medium to high heat. Once hot add in your sausage/mince/mushrooms and cook until golden brown and beginning to darken and crisp up. Next add in the muddled fennel seeds and chilli flakes plus the white and black pepper. You can now add in your cooked onions along with your glass of white wine. Stir and bring to boil, cooking off any alcohol and scrapping the bottom of the pan to remove anything that’s stuck, this will be full of flavour. Allow to cook for 3-4 minutes then reduce the heat and add in spinach, kale, broccoli or any greens of your choice, allow to wilt and cook through. 

For the garlic crumble, heat a generous glug of oil in a pan over a medium heat and add in one large crushed clove of garlic and flavour your oil. Next add in your breadcrumbs, a little sea salt flakes and once the breadcrumbs turn crunchy and golden brown add in some finely chopped parsley or fresh thyme. Remove the clove of garlic and set to one side ready to add to your pasta.

Once the pasta is cooked, add it to your pan with the sausage, onion and greens. Add a splash of the pasta water, pour in the garlic herb crumb and combine. Finish with a generous helping of grated pecorino or parmesan, the zest off half a lemon and season to taste.