Riverford pork , tomato and basil sausages have a powerful enough flavour to make a great sauce and combined with a touch of chilli you will have here a perky carbonara. If you can be bothered, it is worth removing the sausage meat from the skins and forming the pork into small walnut sized meatballs, but if time is of the essence then just cut the sausages into bite sized chunks.

For my own preference, carbonara is a little too meaty, and I’m inclined to seed and chop a couple of ripe tomatoes to add to the meat for sauce a couple of minutes before it’s finished - so that the tomato has just enough time to heat through, but not enough for it to break down to a pulp.

Ingredients - serves 4

4 Riverford pork, tomato and basil sausages
4 slices of bacon, roughly chopped
25g butter
pinch of chilli flakes
salt & black pepper
4 large egg yolks
100ml double cream
100g freshly grated Parmesan cheese
500g dried tagliatelle
olive oil

Method

Fill a large saucepan with salted water and set it on the stove to heat while you prepare the sauce. Cut the sausages into chunks and chop the bacon into lardon. Heat the butter in a heavy frying pan with a little olive oil and the chilli flakes and add the sausage and bacon - fry off to colour all over, and then until cooked through. Keep warm.

Start the tagliatelle and cook according to the packet. While it boils, mix the cream and egg yolks together with seasoning and half the grated Parmesan cheese. Before draining the pasta, remove about 100ml of pasta water and add that to the cream and yolks too. Once drained, season the pasta with pepper and add more olive oil and the creamy sauce, toss; add the bacon and sausages toss again and divide between warmed bowls. Offer the rest of the Parmesan to scatter over.