I think Portuguese chouriço sausage is amazingly delicious – sliced on fresh floury rolls with a smear of ricotta, thrown into stews and soups for some salty, piquant porkiness, and my all-time favourite, chouriço and scrambled eggs – a breakfast and Sunday night supper that just can’t be beat! But last week I upped the flavour stakes by first frying thick slices of chouriço so they were crisp and had released their gorgeous paprika-red fat, then sautéed sliced button mushrooms in the pan until they were deeply golden and had sucked up all the oil. Added a handful of pitted green olives just to warm through, then stirred the lot into cooked shell pasta. There were no leftovers! If you’re going low-carb, you can just leave out the pasta and eat the rest as a snack, or toss it – still hot – over salad.