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Posts Tagged ‘Italian sausages’

Pasta with Fennel, Sausage and Courgette

Posted in Food, Italian, Pasta, Pork, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 4 August 2022| 4 Comments »

A nice pasta with unusual flavours. Use good-quality Italian sausages for this if you can find them.

Wine Suggestion: As this dish is full-flavoured we’d suggest a full flavoured white like Cline Cellars Sonoma Coast Chardonnay, which has a wonderful Californian ripeness combined with a core of fresh minerality and zing from the cooling breezes and fog coming through the Petaluma Gap each day. The subtle oak gives a lovely texture which helps matching this dish too.

Pasta with fennel, sausage and courgette – serves 4

  • 3 good-quality pork sausages (we like Italian sausages)
  • 1 tsp olive oil
  • ½ small fennel bulb, trim off any green bits and chop finey, reserve any fronds to garnish
  • ½ onion, diced
  • 2 big cloves of garlic, finely chopped
  • 200g rigatoni pasta
  • zest and juice of a lemon
  • 100g mascarpone
  • 1 medium-large courgete, grated
  • 1 tbsp toasted pine nuts
  • grated Parmesan (to serve)

Take the skins off the sausages and crumble them into small chunks. Heat the oil in a large frying pan, then fry the sausages until browned and crispy, breaking the lumps up with a wooden spoon. Scoop out with a slotted spoon and set aside.

Add the fennel, onion and garlic to the sausage fat in the pan and cook for about 10 minutes, or until softened but not coloured. You can add a splash of water if it starts to stick.

Bring a large pan of salty water to the boil, add the pasta and cook according to the timings on the pack. Drain but reserve a mugful of the cooking water.

Return the frying pan to the heat and stir in the lemon zest, lemon juice, mascarpone, grated courgette and a splash of pasta cooking water. Bubble for 2 minutes, then stir in the cooked pasta and sausages. Season, then serve garnished with fennel fronds, pine nuts and Parmesan.

(Original recipe from BBC Good Food)

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Penne with Italian Sausages & Rocket

Posted in Food, Italian, Pasta, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 9 June 2022| Leave a Comment »

This simple pasta dish will be ready in 10 minutes, the kind of dish we like on a Friday night! The Italian sausages we used tonight were the spicier sort but this would be delicious with milder ones too, the key is the higher meat content. If the sausages have fennel in them halve the fennel seeds.

Wine Suggestion: An under-rated Tuscan coast gem, Morisfarm’s Mandriolo. A classic, youthful Sangiovese with a touch of Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot this is juicy and vibrant, but also hiding a serious core that stands up to flavoursome food

Penne with Italian sausages & rocket – serves 4

  • 200g Italian sausages
  • 5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 clove of garlic, peeled and finely sliced
  • 1 tsp fennel seeds
  • ½ glass of white wine
  • 500g penne rigate pasta
  • 100g freshly grated pecorino
  • 100g rocket

Remove the skins from the sausages and break them up into a bowl.

Warm the oil in a large frying pan over a low heat, add the sausages and garlic and cook for about 3 minutes. Add fennel seeds and some salt and continue to cook for another minute. Add the wine and cook for a minute more, then remove from the heat.

Meanwhile cook the pasta in lots of salty water.

When the pasta is cooked, return the sauce to a medium heat. Drain the pasta and tip into the sauce. Sprinkle over the pecorino and rocket and toss for about 30 seconds over a medium heat to allow them to come together.

(Original recipe from Gino’s Pasta by Gino D’Acampo, Kyle Books, 2010.)

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Fusilli with Sausage

Posted in Food, Italian, Pasta, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on 31 July 2021| Leave a Comment »

Do try and find Italian sausages for this, they’re much meatier and richer. We buy a brand called Levoni. You can also use fresh tomatoes if you can find fantastic ones but otherwise we’d recommend a good-quality tin.

Wine Suggestion: This was made after an online wine tasting Jono was running which focussed on Grenache, so naturally we had to try them with this. The amazing Domaine de Cébène Ex Arena from Faugeres was our pick. Mostly old vine, low yeilding Grenache with a touch of Mourvedre, grown on sand. This is perfumed and complex with vitality and energy. The deep red berried fruit is both rounded and structured with a bass note of earthy black fruits and forest floor. Very elegant but also big enough to stand up to the meaty and rich pasta.

Fusilli with Sausage – serves 4

  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 400g Italian sausages, skins removed
  • 150ml white wine
  • 1 x 400g tin plum tomatoes
  • a handful of mint leaves
  • 400g dried fusilli pasta
  • grated pecorino, to serve

Gently warm the garlic and olive oil in a large pan, then crumble in the sausages. Turn the heat up and cook until they are no longer pink (as you would with mince).

Add the wine and bubble until evaporated, then add the tomatoes and cook for 5-10 minutes or until thickened. Add the mint and taste for seasoning, sausages can be quite salty so you might not need any.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta until just al dente in lots of very salty water.

Drain the pasta but keep a little cooking water in case you need to thin the sauce. Stir the pasta into the sausage sauce and simmer for a few minutes. Serve in warm bowls with pecorino sprinkled over.

(Original recipe from An A-Z of Pasta by Rachel Roddy, Fig Tree, 2021.)

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Sausages with Purple Sprouting Broccoli

Posted in Food, Italian, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on 14 February 2021| Leave a Comment »

A recipe from Southern Italian Cooking by Valentina Harris. There is no better vehicle to showcase purple sprouting broccoli, which is in season right now. You need top quality ingredients as they will shine in this simple dish. The sausages were Italian with fennel and the PSB our friends at McNally Family Farm.

Wine Suggestion: There’s a certain honest rusticity to this dish which we think suits Nebbiolo or similar, but not the heady heights of Barolo, look for a lesser known area. We went for the lesser known Freisa grape, also from Piedmont. A bottle of the Olim Bauda Freisa and it tasted of roses and raspberry’s with a decent whack of smooth, honest tannins; satisfying and generous alongside the food.

Salsicce con Broccoletti – serves 4

  • 1 tbsp lard (we used a mix of olive oil and butter)
  • 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
  • 1 dried red chilli pepper
  • 500g Italian sausages (you need top quality Italian sausages which have a much coarser texture than regular butchers sausages)
  • 750g purple sprouting broccoli, rinsed and trimmed

A large shallow casserole dish works well for this. Melt the lard and fry the garlic and chilli pepper over a gentle heat for 5 minutes. Add the sausages and brown all over (you might want to do this in a frying pan so you don’t burn the garlic, if you do, make sure that the tip all the oil that comes out of the sausages back into the pan).

Once browned all over, turn the heat down and cook the sausages gently for 5 minutes. Add the broccoli and season with a little salt. Stir everything to coat in the fat.

Cover the pan and simmer for 20 minutes, a splash of water will help steam the broccoli and stop the dish drying out.

(Original recipe from Southern Italian Cooking by Valentina Harris, Pavilion Books Limited, 1993.)

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Radiatori with Sausage & Saffron

Posted in Food, Italian, Pasta, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on 27 May 2019| Leave a Comment »

Radiatori with Sausage & Saffron

We’re getting a new kitchen and currently trying to clear the cupboards of as many ingredients as possible to save us having to pack them away. I don’t know why we bought a bag of radiatori pasta, maybe we just liked the look of it, but a quick flick of the books turned up the perfect recipe. Do find Italian sausages if you can (we used luganega but you can often find good pork and fennel ones too) as they’re a lot denser than our traditional sausages. Gone are the days when we used to beg Italian restaurants to sell us some!

Wine suggestion: the saffron gives this dish a refinement and character a little different to some other Italian / pasta recipes and we think that the newly classic wines of the Tuscan coast, specifically Bolgheri and northern Maremma suit the dish really well. For sheer value we’d open a bottle Argentiera’s Poggio ai Ginepri which is Cabernet Sauvignon led. However, if you can stretch further then the Cabernet Franc led wines of Biserno, like their il Pino would make this dish feel like a proper event – as all Friday night dishes should be!

Radiatori with Sausage & Saffron – serves 4 to 6

  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • a large onion, roughly chopped
  • 500g Italian sausages, remove the skins and break up the meat with your hands
  • ¼ tsp of saffron threads
  • 600ml passata
  • 500g radiatori pasta
  • basil & grated pecorino (to serve)

Warm the oil in a heavy casserole. Add the onion with a pinch of sea salt and cook over a medium-low heat for about 10 minutes or until softened.

Turn the heat up, then add the sausagemeat, keep breaking it up with your spoon if needed, and stir until it loses its raw appearance, then add the saffron and passata. Bring to a bubble and turn the heat down low and simmer gently for 40 minutes.

Place a lid on the casserole and turn off the heat, then cook the pasta in lots of boiling, salty water for the time on the packet. Reserve a few ladlefuls of pasta water before you drain it.

Tip the pasta into the sauce and toss together, adding a bit of pasta water to help it come together if needed. Serve sprinkled with basil and pecorino.

(Original  recipe from At My Table by Nigella Lawson, Chatto & Windus, 2017.)

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Sausages & Green Lentils with Tomato Salsa

Posted in Food, Italian, tagged , , , , , , , , on 5 April 2018| 1 Comment »

Sausages and green lentils with tomato salsa

Italian-style comfort food with honest, rustic flavours. Generous portions of deliciousness and tastes even better on the second day. Do seek out proper Italian sausages if you can – some of them are gluten-free as well for our coeliac friends.

Wine Suggestion: playing on the rustic theme works well by looking for an earthy wine match, you also need a bit of acidity which you can often find in Italian wines. We’ve successfully tried some cheaper Rosso Conero from the Marche made from Montepulciano and simple Chianti made from Sangiovese. Alternately the Insoglio del Cinghiale from the Maremma steps it up a notch, and then a step further the Pira Luigi Serralunga Barolo.

Salsicce con lenticchie verdi e salsa de pomodoro – serves 4

  • 8 good-quality Italian sausages
  • 2-3 sprigs of thyme
  • 500g purple-sprouting broccoli or cima di rapa
  • juice of ½ a lemon

FOR THE SALSA ROSSA:

  • 1 small red onion, peeled and finely chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
  • 1 small stick of cinnamon
  • 1-2 small dried red chillies, crumbled
  • 2-3 tbsp red wine vinegar
  • 2 x 400g tins of plum tomatoes

FOR THE LENTILS:

  • 400g Puy lentils or lentichhie di Castelluccio
  • 2 cloves of garlic, peeled
  • a handful of flat-leaf parsley, leaves chopped and stalks reserved
  • red wine vinegar or sherry vinegar
  • a small handful of thyme tips

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.

Start with the salsa by heating some oil in a saucepan and cooking the onion, garlic, cinnamon stick and chilli over a gentle heat for about 10 minutes or until the onions are soft. Turn up the heat and add the red wine vinegar, then turn the heat to low and add the tinned tomatoes (chop them up with you hands or with a wooden spoon). Simmer the sauce slowly for about half an hour while you cook the lentils.

Put the lentils into a large pot, cover with water and add the whole cloves of garlic, the bay leaf and the parsley stalks (tied together so they’re easy to remove at the end). Simmer for about 20 minutes, checking to make sure the liquid still covers the lentils. Check regularly near the end of the cooking time to make sure they don’t overcook.

Toss the sausages in a small bit of olive oil and bake in a roasting tray for about 25 minutes until golden.

When the sausages are cooked either boil or steam the broccoli until cooked, then drain and toss with some lemon juice, good olive oil and seasoning.

Fish the parsley stalks and bay leaves out of the cooked lentils and pour off most of the water. Mash the garlic cloves with a spoon and mix into the lentils with 4 tbsp of good olive oil and 1 to 2 tbsp of vinegar. Stir in the chopped parsley, then mix and season.

Pour away any fat from the sausages and slice thickly.

Remove the cinnamon stick from the salsa and season well.

Put the lentils onto plates, spoon over the salsa and top with the sliced sausages. Sprinkle with the thyme tips and serve with the broccoli.

(Original recipe from Jamie’s Italy by Jamie Oliver, Michael Joseph, 2005.)

 

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Creamy Italian Sausage & Broccoli Ragù

Posted in Food, Italian, tagged , , , , , , , , , on 7 January 2018| 2 Comments »

Ragu di salsicce e broccoletti

This simple dish satisfied the cravings we get at this time of year for lots of greens. We thought the suggestion of serving it with rice, rather than pasta, a bit unusual but it was perfect. Seek out top-quality Italian pork sausages if you can. We can buy them fairly easily now in Dublin but have been known in the past to beg the local Italian restaurant to sell us some – so  you could try that tactic if they’re not readily available where you are.

Wine Suggestion: This is a characterful dish so the wine you choose needs to have character and presence to match. We opened a MorisFarms Mandriolo, a fresh and vibrant blend of mostly Sangiovese with some Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Petit Verdot from the Maremma in Tuscany. Being typically Italian the fresh acidity cut through the richness of this dish and proved a delightful match: we couldn’t determine if the hints of fennel came from the wine or the Italian sausages used … or maybe both.

Ragú di salsicce e broccoletti – Creamy sausage & broccoli ragú – serves 4

  • 200g long grain rice
  • 4 tbsp olive oil
  • 4 scallion, roughly chopped
  • a few sprigs of thyme
  • 6 good-quality Italian pork sausages, removed from their skins
  • 200g tenderstem broccoli, chopped into 1 cm pieces
  • 50ml white wine
  • 1 tbsp vegetable stock powder
  • 100ml crème fraîche
  • 30g Parmesan, grated (to serve)

Steam the rice in a rice cooker or according to the instructions on the pack.

Heat the olive oil in a large frying pan and fry the scallions and thyme leaves for a couple of minutes.

Break up the sausage meat with your fingers,  add to the frying pan and cook for another 5 minutes.

Add the broccoli pieces and continue to cook for 3 minutes.

Pour in the wine and cook for another couple of minutes, then stir in the stock powder and crème fraîche. Season with salt and freshly ground white pepper.

Serve the ragù over the rice and sprinkle with freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

(Original recipe from Pronto! by Gino D’Campo, Kyle Books, 2014.)

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Red pepper and Sausage Rigatoni

Posted in Food, Italian, Pasta, tagged , , , , , , , , on 26 September 2017| Leave a Comment »

Pasta with red peppers and sausages

We love dishes like this! So cheap and easy yet tastes of Italian holidays. Try and find some good Italian sausages as they tend to be really well flavoured.

Wine Suggestion: the fresh and pure fruited Rocca delle Macie Chianti Vernaiolo was our successful match with this. With no oak this is a delicious expression of cherry fruited flavours that celebrates the freshness of the dish at the same time.

  • 1 small red onion, finely sliced
  • 3 red peppers, deseeded and cut into 2cm squares
  • 4 pork sausages – try and get your hands on some Italian ones if possible
  • 6 tbsp olive oil
  • a couple of pinches of salt and chilli flakes
  • 5 ripe tomatoes, peeled and roughly chopped (cover with hot water for a minute to make them easier to peel)
  • 400g pasta, we used rigatoni but use any short pasta variety
  • plenty of freshly grated Parmesan, to serve

Run a sharp knife down each sausage and remove the meat from inside the casing. Crumble roughly with your fingers to break it up a bit and set aside.

Over a medium-low heat, fry the onion in the olive oil with a small pinch of salt until soft but not browned. Add the chilli and sausage meat, crumbling it with your fingers, then fry, breaking the pieces up with the back of a wooden spoon until the meat is no longer pink. Add the peppers, another pinch of salt and cook, stirring every now and then, for another 10 minutes.

Add the tomatoes to the pan and cook for another 15 minutes or until the sauce is rich and thick and the peppers are very soft.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in  boiling salty water until al dente. Warm a large bowl, then mix the cooked pasta with the sauce and the grated Parmesan before serving.

(Original recipe published in The Guardian 18th July 2017.)

 

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We *heart* Italian Sausages

Posted in Food, tagged , , , , , on 6 March 2011| Leave a Comment »

We were in a local Italian restaurant just after Christmas and tasted these amazing sausages. When we asked where we could get them the waiter said they import them direct from Siena but the chef might let us buy a few. So we now have a stash of them in the freezer and this is the first recipe we’ve tried. If you live near a good Italian restaurant we highly recommend you try and blag some sausages off them. If you can’t get good Italian sausages get the coarsest ones you can find for this. Not exactly virtuous but comfort food at its best.

Baked Savoy Cabbage – to serve 6

  • 1kg Savoy cabbage, cored and cut into strips
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 250g Italian sausages, skinned and crumbled
  • 2 tbsp tomato puree
  • 300g mozzarella, sliced
  • 200ml double cream
  • 40g Parmesan cheese, grated

Cook the cabbage in boiling water for 5 minutes, then drain and refresh in iced water. Drain well again and spread out on a tea towel.

Heat oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

Brush an ovenproof dish with olive oil.

Put the sausages in a saucepan with the oil and heat gently. Stir in the tomato puree and 5tbsp water, season and cook over a medium heat for 10 minutes.

Make a layer of cabbage in the dish, season, add a layer of mozzarella, add a layer of sausage, top with another layer of cabbage and season. Continue making layers, seasoning each layer of cabbage, until the ingredients are used, ending with a layer of cabbage.

Pour the cream over the top, sprinkle with the Parmesan and bake for 40 minutes.

Serve with some crusty bread as you will want to mop your plate at the end.

(Original recipe from Silver Spoon)

Wine suggestion: We had a glass of Domaine Brusset, Cairanne Blanc 2010 which is dry, savoury and worked well but we thought it might also be nice with a dry Sherry like a Fino or Amontillado.

 

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