CRUNCHY CRISPY CHORIZO PASTA

 Believe it or not summer is still upon us and some days a nice cold pasta salad is the perfect thing for a warm summers dinner. This recipe uses crispy fried chorizo, a sprinkling of pine nuts, some freshly chopped avocado (and a secret ingredient) to create a delicious dish full of flavour punch and different textures to create something that will both stimulate the eyes as well as the taste buds. Its a fabulous quick and simple dish which you can serve as a main or as a side at a BBQ.

Now a little tip with the pasta. Once it's cooked and cooled, pour a tsp of olive oil at a time and use your hands to coat all the pasta and break it up into its individual pieces otherwise you'll end up with a big soggy mess when you add the rest of the ingredients. For more flavour I used a thyme flavoured olive oil from Nudo Italia which worked really well. Check out their website and grab yourself a tin, it really is delicious (and you can adopt your own olive tree too!) and well worth the wait on delivery but don't worry if you just have plain olive oil, you'll still have a delicious dish once your finished.

Next the chorizo. You want little crispy bits peppered throughout your pasta but whole chorizo can be really tough to cut. My little shortcut is to suggest buy a pack of precut thin slices of chorizo from the deli counter of your supermarket. They will be thin to begin with and a lot easier to quickly chop into little pieces. If you not a fan of chorizo you can use some fried panchetta or lardons in a similar way.

For your avocado you want one that's nice and ripe. You can test this by pressing the base of the avocado. It's its solid then it's no good. You want one that's a bit squishy so that it's lovely and soft when you slice through it. Keep the stone too and place this in the centre of the pasta once it's prepared to slow down the avocado from going off. 

The secret ingredient I mentioned earlier is a good glug of Scarlett and Mustard's tarragon dressing. This beautiful dressing is amazing and works really well with the fresh parsley. I have talked about their fab curds in my Melty muffin recipe but there dressings are equally as impressive so if you do want to treat yourself then head over to their website and order yourself some for a well deserved treat. Go on, you deserve it! If you don't have the chance to pick some up then the pasta is still yummy, just add an extra glug of olive oil to moisten it up a bit more.

If you prepare the pasta and chorizo at the same time this recipe should take no more than half an hour to get to the table. Looking for a quick meal, give it a whirl tonight!

Crunchy Crispy Chorizo Pasta

250g Fussili (Or Pasta Of Your Choice)
2-3 Tbsp Olive Oil

150g Finely Diced Chorizo

1 Avocado
Handful Pine Nuts
Handful Chopped Fresh Parsley
A Good Glug Of Tarragon Dressing 

1. Cook the pasta to the packet instructions, drain and leave to one side to cool. Once cooled, drizzle over the olive oil a tbsp at a time and use your hands to coat and separate the individual pasta pieces. Place this into a large bowl.
2. At the same as your preparing the pasta, throw your chorizo into a dry pan on a high heat and fry until the chorizo is crispy and all the oil from the chorizo has leaked out into the pan. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.
3. Once everything is cool and you have added the olive oil to the pasta, tip the chorizo and it's oil into the pasta and give everything a good mix.
4. Peel your avocado and remove the stone. Chop into smallish chunks and toss into the pasta with the nuts and parsley and again, give everything a good old mix.
5. Pour in a good glug of the tarragon dressing and mix again, enough to just lightly coat the pasta.

 

Serve straight from the bowl. A fabulously fresh pasta dish in no time at all. Simples!