When you're sick of turkey, try Colm O'Gorman's perfect post-Christmas pasta recipe 

This recipe calls for sausage, brown butter and sage

Colm O'Gorman:Pasta with Sausage, Brown Butter and Sage

I love a traditional Christmas lunch, and also love eating leftovers for a day or two after the big day, but I do tire of turkey and ham by about day three. 

For that reason, I have learnt to order a smaller turkey, enough for a great Christmas day and to make my fabulous Christmas toasties for a few days after the big day (you can find my Ultimate Christmas Toastie recipe here). 

For me, Christmas is all about having lots of down time with loved ones, about sharing time together, and of course, great food is central to that. 

By day three of the holidays though, I usually move to preparing quick and easy dishes, something delicious that can be made in less than thirty minutes is about right for post-Christmas Day cooking in my opinion. 

After the hours in the kitchen preparing Christmas Day lunch, I am eager to keep things simple for a little while and maximise time with loved ones. 

Simple does not mean comprising on flavour of course. It is easy to cook fabulous food in less than thirty minutes, something that will delight and satisfy everyone.

This pasta dish is perfect for that kind of holiday meal. It takes about twenty minutes to cook but tastes fantastic. 

The flavours are clean and simple, but deeply satisfying. 

Silky pasta in a creamy sauce of nutty brown butter with crispy sage and parmesan, with pan fried sausage and finished with a generous grating of more parmesan cheese. 

This is the kind of casual, easy meal that is perfect after a long afternoon walk or on the couch as everyone settles in to watch something festive on TV.

You can use linguine for this dish, but I favour fresine. Fresine is thicker than linguine and has a rougher finish which means sauce the will cling to the pasta more. 

You should find it easily enough in larger supermarkets, but any dried ribbon pasta, even spaghetti, will work well. 

If you can get hold of some Italian sausage, that would be perfect, but any good quality high meat content pork sausage will work beautifully. 

Aim for 80% pork content and avoid anything that is too strongly flavoured. 

Definitely do not use anything with paprika or chilli, or anything but pork sausages, as too strong a flavour will overpower the brown butter and sage.

This recipe serves four, but you can easily scale it up or down as required.

Pasta with sausage, brown butter and sage

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

When you're sick of turkey, try Colm O'Gorman's perfect post-Christmas pasta

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 15 mins

Cooking Time

 15 mins

Total Time

 30 mins

Course

 Main

Cuisine

 Irish

Ingredients

• 400g pork sausage

• 50g butter

• Handful fresh sage, approx 30 leaves

• 75g freshly grated parmesan cheese

• 500g dried fresine or linguine

• Splash of lemon juice

• Ground black pepper

Method

1. Remove the sausages from their skins and chop them into pieces 1-2cm pieces. Discard the skins.

2. Warm a heavy based non-stick frying pan over a high heat. Add the sausages and reduce the heat to medium.

3. Fry for three to four minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sausage has broken up a little more, is cooked through and starting to caramelise. Remove from the heat and set aside for now.

4. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Add the pasta and cook until it is tender, but still about one minute away from fully done. For linguine, allow about nine to ten minutes, for fresine, allow eleven to twelve minutes.

5. While the pasta is cooking, heat a small pan over a high heat and add the butter.

6. Reduce the heat to medium and when the butter starts to foam, reduce to low.

7. Wash and roughly chop the sage leaves, discarding the thicker stalks as they are too fibrous to use in this recipe. Add the chopped sage, to the foaming butter and cook until the butter turns nutty brown.

8. This will only take a few minutes, so keep an eye on the pan and do not let the butter or the sage burn. You want the butter to be a nice brown colour with a biscuity hazelnut like aroma. When it is done, remove the pan for the heat and set aside.

9. When the pasta is almost done, remove one cup of the starchy cooking water and set aside. Drain the pasta and pop it back into the pot.

10. Add the cooked sausage, the brown butter and sage, and the parmesan and stir to mix and warm them through over a low heat. The pasta should be coated quite thickly now in the butter and cheese mixture, so add some of the reserved pasta cooking water to thin it out. The salty, starchy water will add seasoning but also help bind the pasta and sauce together; and it also helps give a lovely texture to the sauce.

11. Just add one quarter of a cup at a time until you get the desired consistency.

12. Finally, add a splash of lemon juice and a good grind of fresh black pepper to season. If you used enough salt in the pasta water, you should not need any more, but taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning to taste, adding more lemon juice, pepper or salt if needed.

13. Serve the pasta in warm bowls, with more parmesan on top with fresh crusty bread and a simple green salad on the side.