Philosophy, cookery and geekery

For 2 people.

Ingredients:
4-6 good-quality sausages (I used Tesco ‘Finest’ Pork and Sweet Chilli bangers, which inspired the sauce)
200g (or a little more, depending on hunger) of tagliatelle.
2 medium onions, chopped in half-rings (ideally 1 red, 1 white)
Some mushrooms, chopped as appropriate (to taste)
Cider
~100ml single cream
1/2 red chilli, finely diced, or equivalent of fresh chilli-from-a-jar. Leave seeds out unless you really like hot food.
(optional) some sweet chilli sauce

Instructions:

1. Heat a shallow frying pan to medium, add oil and slow-cook the sausages, turning as necessary. Slower is always better with sausages!
2. In a deeper frying pan, heat some oil until fairly hot, and bung in the onions and mushrooms. After a minute or two turn the heat down and leave them on a low heat for 5 minutes, or until soft and browned.
3. Stir in the red chilli and/or sweet-chilli sauce.
4. Add a long splash of cider, enough to half-cover the onions and mushrooms. Adjust the heat as necessary and simmer the pan’s contents until the cider has reduced quite a lot. At this point, if you like, you can add another splash of cider and re-reduce.
5. While the cider is reducing, boil water and cook your tagliatelle as per pack instructions. When done, drain and return to saucepan, tossing with a little olive oil.
6. By now, your sausages should be done. Remove them from the pan and cut them up into chunks, roughly.
7. Add the sausages and some single cream to the deep pan and stir to coat everything.
8. Lastly, add the tagliatelle and toss thoroughly until coated with sauce. You got the right amount of cream if the tagliatelle is well coated but there’s no excess sauce in the bottom of the pan. Add a bit more cream and/or cider (to taste) if it’s looking a little dry.
9. Serve on warmed plates, enjoy!

If anyone cooks this and comes up with any modifications, please mention in the comments. I threw this together on the hoof without formulating a plan at any point – as such, although I was very pleased with the results, there are probably things that could be done better!