Creamy Tomato Sausage Orzo

Ingredients

• 6 pork sausages, skins removed
• 600 ml chicken stock
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 400 g chopped tomatoes
• 100 g baby spinach
• salt and black pepper to taste
• 1 onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 100 g cream cheese
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 250 g orzo
• 40 g parmesan, grated
• Crusty bread, to serve
• Green salad, to serve

Method

1. Heat the olive oil in a large deep frying pan or shallow casserole over a medium-high heat. Squeeze the sausage meat out of the skins in rough chunks and drop into the pan in a single layer — work in two batches if your pan looks crowded. All at once and the meat steams in its own water instead of browning. Leave the chunks alone for 2 minutes before stirring, then break them up a little and cook for another 4 to 6 minutes until deeply browned with crisp, caramelised edges and proper stuck-on bits forming on the base of the pan. Season generously with salt and black pepper as it browns.
2. Drop the heat to medium and add the onion. Cook for about 4 minutes, stirring through the sausage fat, until softened and translucent and lifting some of the fond off the base.
3. Stir in the garlic, tomato puree and smoked paprika. Cook for 30 to 60 seconds — just until the garlic is fragrant, the paprika smells toasty and the puree darkens a shade. Don't let it go further; burnt garlic turns the whole pot bitter, and ground spices need this brief bloom in the hot fat to taste of themselves rather than dust.
4. Tip in the orzo, chopped tomatoes and chicken stock and scrape the base of the pan to lift every last brown bit into the sauce — that's where the depth lives. The stock is doing double duty here: it cooks the orzo and breaks the tinned tomatoes down so they taste of fruit rather than tin. Bring up to a steady simmer and cook uncovered for 10 to 12 minutes, stirring regularly so the orzo doesn't catch on the bottom, until the pasta is nearly tender and the sauce has thickened around it like a loose risotto. Note: the orzo cooks IN the sauce here, so you don't need a separate pasta pot — but if you ever boil orzo on its own for this dish, salt the water generously until it tastes like the sea.
5. Stir in the cream cheese off direct heat until it melts into the sauce and turns everything glossy and pale coral.
6. Add the baby spinach a handful at a time, folding it through until just wilted and bright green — any longer and it goes khaki.
7. Stir through half the parmesan. Now taste, season, taste again. Adjust the salt and pepper now — at the stove, not at the table.
8. Spoon into shallow bowls, scatter the remaining parmesan over the top, and serve with crusty bread for mopping and a sharp green salad alongside.