Real Cooking for Real Men

Beginner cooks like to prepare food using familiar ingredients. With regard to pasta, this usually means spaghetti, with occasional brave forays into spirelli. But sometimes pasta demands a bigger presence on the plate.

Chorizo is the big flavour player in this dish. Highly spiced and gloriously textured, this Portuguese delicacy is widely available in various forms from regular supermarkets and artisanal butchers.

To make this meal for four diners, you will need:

One 500g packet of penne pasta 450g chorizo sausage

350g butternut

30ml extra-virgin olive oil 80g butter

7 fresh sage leaves

50g Parmesan or pecorino Salt and coarsely ground black pepper

1 lemon

1 Bring a large saucepan of water to the boil, then turn off the heat and have the pot standing by for cooking the pasta later.

2 Peel and deseed the butternut, then cut the remainder into 15mm cubes. Cut the chorizo into slices 10mm thick. Select a large, heavy-based frying pan and bring the extra-virgin olive oil up to medium-high heat. Add the chorizo slices and let them sizzle, turning them a couple of times during the five-minute process. Remove and allow the cooked slices to drain on a kitchen towel.

3 Using the same pan, drop the heat to medium. Add the cubed butternut and stir-fry for six minutes until the cubes are well browned on all sides.

4 Turn the hob on high to bring your pot of water back to a rolling boil. Add a teaspoon of salt before adding the pasta. Follow the cooking instructions on the packaging. Drain and reserve under cover, retaining a single cup of the pasta cooking water in a separate bowl.

5 Meanwhile, add the chopped fresh sage leaves and the butter to the pan with the butternut. Let this cook for a minute or two until the butter foams, then remove from the hob and add the cooked chorizo. Now add the cooked pasta, stir, and use some of the pasta water you saved to improve the consistency of the sauce. Sprinkle freshly ground pecorino or Parmesan cheese over the mix, and season with coarsely ground black pepper. As both the chorizo and the hard cheese of your choice are usually well salted, additional salt may prove unnecessary. Just before serving, squeeze a little fresh lemon juice over the dish and garnish with a spare sage leaf or two.

• David Basckin is a freelance journalist and videographer. Email him at farmersweekly@caxton.co.za. Subject line: Real cooking.

Styling: Nomvuselelo Mncube Photo: Peter Whitfield