Once again I found myself not 100% on my game today. Not this time because of a hangover resulting from a night of heavy drinking and falling asleep on the night bus, or because I was distracted by a stack of mostly cooking themed birthday presents. No, this time I felt the dreaded tickly beginnings of man-flu. I was, however, quite excited about this dish because a) a fellow Jamie enthusiast highly recommended it and b) I'd never tried gnocchi before and so, to a hilarious backdrop of Arsenal getting schooled by Bayern Munich, I soldiered on.
When laying out my ingredients (I have adopted a stress-relieving and mess-minimizing strategy of laying out pre-measured quanities of all ingredients prior to stating cooking) I was initially struck by the similarity of this dish to the last sausage pasta dish I cooked last month. I remembered how underwhelmed I was with that particular dish while Lolz was also nervous about the gratuitious use of fennel seeds, but any doubts quickly faded away once the rosemary leaves hit the casserole pan and kitchen was filled with that incredible aroma that only happens when fresh herbs hit a hot pan.
It's actually one of the trickier recipes I have tried so far. You have three pans on the stove, all of which require attention and additional ingredients added to them over the course of the 15 minues. The sausages in particular require constant stirring to avoid burnage. I was also highly confused by apparent requirement (as specified in the prep section of the recipe) of the food processor (slicing attachment). At no point was this required. Still, the end product was a success. The sauce had an incredible richness (probably as a result of the wine) which the other sausage pasta lacked, whilst the greens and especially the maple glazed bacon, were a hit.
Lolz gave the dish 7/10. She felt there was a bit too much going on and felt the sauce would have been better with pasta than gnocchi. I personally would have scored it higher, particularly in the categories of leftoverability and use of trendy platters! Difficulty rating 7/10.
