Matt Clark has been living in the neighbourhood for two years now. He worked for six years as a chef before deciding to study interior design. We stopped by his Fitzroy Street terrace, where he lives with his girlfriend Jac and two dogs Solo and Mouse. He was preparing his go-to dinner for two plus the next day’s lunch, Toulouse sausage and tomato pasta.
All the ingredients were sourced from Maloney’s on Crown Street, and the accompanying wine was the Mother Hen Chardonnay from the Mornington Peninsula, purchased at the El Loco bottle shop. He spent around $50 all up.
“It’s easy and super tasty. You can’t go wrong with chilli, tomato and garlic.” Wise words, Matt.
Matt’s Toulouse Sausage and Tomato Pasta
Ingredients
- 4 eshalots
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 small birds eye chillies
- 1 punnet grape tomatoes
- 440g Romeo’s Fine Food Pork Toulouse Sausages
- 80 g butter
- 100g halved green olives
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- A generous splash of white wine
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- 1 packet Barilla Farfalle or preferred pasta type
- ½ cup basil to finish
- Parmesan to finish (add as desired)
Method
- Put a large pot of water on to boil and salt the water generously.
- Finely dice eschalots and chilli (and garlic if you don’t have a mincer).
- Gently squeeze the sausage meat out of the casing and shape into little meatballs the size of twenty cent pieces, about 20-30g each.
- Heat 2 tbsp oil in a large frypan. Once hot, brown off the sausage meatballs.
- Set aside the meatballs once browned (they don’t have to be fully cooked.) Let the pan cool slightly.
- In the same pan add half the butter and 1 tbsp oil and sweat the eschalots, garlic and chilli on low heat until translucent for roughly 6 minutes and season with salt and pepper.
- Add the grape tomatoes, the browned sausage meatballs and a splash of white wine. Cover and let simmer. Add your pasta to the boiling water once you’ve put the lid on the frypan and let cook for ten minutes or to taste.
- While pasta is cooking, gently burst the tomatoes with a potato masher (or a fork will do the job).
- Add a ladle of the pasta water to the frypan and turn it to high heat. (The pasta releases starch while boiling which helps to thicken the sauce.)
- When the pasta is near al dente, strain it and add to the frypan. Continue to cook in the frypan until the pasta has reached your preferred texture. Stir in the remaining butter (this will make it glossy and delicious).
- Add the green olives, fresh basil and stir. Season to taste.
- Serve with shavings of parmesan, olive oil and cracked pepper.
This simple and delicious recipe is a fail-safe for any night of the week. The sausage can easily be swapped out for any preferred meat or seafood, or it can be made vegetarian.
