Miss Piggy's fennel sausage pasta
A rich dinner with a thick tomato sauce and the subtle hint of aniseed from the fennel homemade sausages. The dish combines vitamin C from the tomatoes, and iron from the meat, a perfect combo; as iron needs vitamin C to help with its absorption. Plus it makes extra sausages, enough for another meal, freeze them and then just make a new batch of sauce to heat them through with, and serve. A rather noir naming of the dish, a cannibal Miss Piggy’s nonetheless, but some kids will love that, also I think it's important children learn from an early age where food comes from. Meal story times are a great way to help your child's speech skills develop.
Makes 16 sausages and enough sauce for 2 grown-ups and a little one
Ingredients
Sauce
2 tins of chopped tomatoes
1 tsp marjoram
3 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 crushed garlic
2 tbsp olive oil
50ml water
Sausages
500g pork mince
1 beaten egg
4 spring onions
1 carrot
1 red chilli
1 stick of celery
2 heaped tbsp breadcrumbs
1 tsp fennel seeds
3 tbsp olive oil
Method
1. Make sausages by blending veg and fennel seeds. Then mix, by hand, together with mince pork, beaten egg and breadcrumbs.
2. Roll into sausage shapes the length of index finger and as plump as a 2 pence coin – you should get around 16 out of the mix.
3. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry for around 5 mins on a low-medium heat to seal the sausages.
4. Next make the tomato sauce – heat oil and fry garlic a little to release flavour (seconds careful not to burn), add chop tomatoes and remainder of ingredients.
5. Then to Finnish cooking the sausages pop them in the sauce and semi cover with a lid and slowly cook on a low medium heat for around 30 mins, occasionally carefully move sausages around to redistribute heat.
6. To serve, pull out sausages and mix you pasta with remaining sauce, serve sausages separately and pimp your dish with the sausages as you eat.
7. There will be sausages left over….freeze and then defrost and heat through making a new batch of sauce for another dinner.
Hint and tips
I scoop her 2 sausages, one to freeze and one to eat, along with a 2 table spoons sauce to mix a few pasta tubes with - I then add around ¼ to ½ tsp salt to remainder of the sauce for the grown ups - the salt is definitely needed for the older palate: it brings out the richness of the sauce and the aniseed of the fennel.
Interesting facts
A rather noir naming of the dish, a cannibal Miss Piggy’s nonetheless, but some will kids love that, also I think it's important children learn from an early age where food comes from. A side note, Miss Piggy's full name is “Pigathia Lee”, as revealed on episode 106 and 116 of The Muppet Show. ‘Pigathia’ is derived from ‘Piganthius’, which is Greek for “river of passion”. She is very passionate! Learning with every meal is a good way to dine with children. The dish combines vitamin C from the tomatoes, and iron from the meat, a perfect combo; as iron needs vitamin C to help with absorption.