Comfort cooking: Rachel Khoo’s smoked sausage stroganoff

This is a Swedish comfort-food classic, but one you’re unlikely to see served outside of work canteens or someone’s home. It’s usually served with rice, but I like to serve mine with pasta and add a few capers to the sauce for a bit of a kick.

Smoked sausage stroganoff

Korv Strogano

Serves 4

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 30 minutes

Ingredients
a knob of butter
1 large onion, peeled and finely chopped
350g falukorv or smoked sausage, very finely diced
1 tbsp tomato purée
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp paprika
130ml single cream
sea salt and black pepper
400g tagliatelle or pappardelle
2 tbsp capers
a handful of finely chopped fresh chives

Method
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil for the tagliatelle or pappardelle.

Put the butter, onion and sausage into a large pan. Fry, stirring occasionally, until the sausage and onion are golden. Add the tomato purée, mustard, paprika and cream, continuing to stir so the flavours mingle, and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Taste for seasoning and adjust to taste.

Add the pasta to the pan of boiling water. Cook for 7 minutes (or according to packet instructions). Drain the pasta, reserving a small mugful (around 80ml) of pasta water.

Add the mug of pasta water to the sausage sauce. Stir in with the capers and take off the heat. Toss the pasta in the sauce until well coated, and sprinkle over the chives. Serve immediately.

Get ahead
The sauce can be made the day before (just don’t add the chives at this stage) and then warmed up gently when you need it. You can also freeze the sauce in an airtight container for up to a month. Simply add the pasta water as stated above just before serving, and cook the pasta fresh.

Extracted from The Little Swedish Kitchen by Rachel Khoo (Michael Joseph, approx €23).