Pasta Recipes: Sausage pasta with saffron
Posted on Jun 25, 2009 04:17:18 PM
Pasta Alla Campidanese
Of all the pasta recipes, this is probably my favorite. My aunt Elia would be proud of me: this gnocchetti alla campidanese turned out really good. This one is a typical Sardinian dish (Campidano is a vast plain in the south part of the island), whose basic ingredients are sausage and saffron. If you add some grated Pecorino cheese (less optional than in other pasta recipes) the resulting taste is fairly strong. Be ready for it.
Which sausage? Well, I wouldn’t know a proper word for it. In some recipes you sometimes find Italian sausage, but I’m not sure what it means. In this case it would be a Sardinian sausage, but it doesn’t help either. Let’s say it’s pork sausage, with a fair amount of fat. It’s not spicy, and it’s not a salami, which means it’s raw and you’re supposed to cook it. I’ve pasted a picture below. Whichever closest you can find to that, the better.
Which pasta? Sardinian gnocchetti (I found them in a Deli shop) is a ribbed pasta with a shape similar to small gnocchi, but that’s the only thing they have in common. An alternative is another type of pasta called malloreddus.
This pasta recipe is for four people:
- 320-350g (11-12oz) of gnocchetti or malloreddus
- a few strands of saffron
- 150g (5 oz) sausage
- 1 tin of chopped tomatoes
- ½ onion, chopped
- salt and pepper, olive oil
- a handful of Pecorino cheese
Remove the skin of the sausage and the fat in excess, and reduce it to small pieces. Heat the olive oil in a frying pan and sauté the onion at low heat for about 10 minutes.
Add the sausage and let it go for another 10 minutes. Add the chopped tomatoes and the saffron. Let if go at medium heat for about 30-40 minutes until the meat is cooked and the sauce has thickened.
Cook the pasta, drain, and add to the pan with the sauce. Stir for 2 minutes at high heat and serve.
More pasta recipes.
Pasta Recipes: Pasta with Lemon and Sage
Posted on Apr 18, 2009 08:42:23 AM
Typical case of taking one of the pasta recipes from a magazine, ending up doing a different thing that works, partly because you don’t have all the exact ingredients, partly because you feel that the original recipe could be much better with some change.
Pasta recipe for four people:
- 320-350g (11-12 oz) fusilli pasta
- zest of one lemon
- 10 leaves of sage
- 20g (1 ½ tbsp) butter
- 5 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
- 2 tablespoons of ricotta cheese
While pasta is cooking following the packet instructions, and this post on how to cook pasta, melt the butter in a frying pan and add the breadcrumbs and 5 torn leaves of sage. You’re not frying, just make sure everything is coated in butter.Take off the heat and put aside.
Peel one lemon and cut half of the zest into small pieces, the other half into sticks.
When the fusilli are ready, drain them, but keep some of the cooking water. Put the frying pan with the bread and sage mix back on the heat, and pour the pasta, a little bit of cooking water, the lemon zest pieces and the ricotta cheese.
Stir for 1-2 minutes and serve. Decorate the pasta with the lemon zest sticks and the remaining sage leaves.
Make sure you only peel the yellow part of the lemon zest, which is really thin and gives the lemon flavour. The white part right underneath it is has a bitter taste and could spoil the pasta sauce.
Zucchini Recipes: zucchini, prawns and cherry tomatoes pasta
Posted on Mar 29, 2009 10:17:02 PM
I’ve finally made it with the quickest of the zucchini recipes with pasta. By “finally” I mean that Italians abroad are not big pasta eaters, at least in my experience, and in our household we’re no different. Pasta is lunch, not dinner food, and it’s not the best thing to have in the lunch box, as it should be eaten straightway.
This zucchini recipe was improvised with what we had in the fridge and my darling Claudia (a better cook than me when she wants) did the miracle. This picture is not good enough (like many of this blog. Will I ever improve?), but zucchini, prawns and tomatoes make a very colorful pasta sauce.
This pasta zucchini recipe is for two:
- 170g (6 oz) long pasta (tagliatelle or spaghetti)
- one chopped zucchini
- 100g (3 ½ oz) prawns
- 10 halved cherry tomatoes
- extra virgin olive oil
- ½ chopped onion
- 2/3 glass of white wine
- a clove of garlic
- salt and pepper
- a sprinkle of lemon juice (optional)
Let the shrimps thaw in boiling water if frozen. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan with the garlic and add the shrimps, half of the wine, and a sprinkle of lemon juice. Season and let it simmer until there’s little cooking liquid left.
Put the shrimps aside, rinse the frying pan and put it back on the fire with some more olive oil and the onion. Let it sauté at low heat until the onion is lucid, then turn up to medium heat and add the courgette and the rest of the wine.
Let the courgettes simmer until they start to become tender, then add the shrimps and the tomatoes. Cook for about five more minutes. The most important thing here is to take the pan off the stove when there’s still some liquid left. If the courgettes are still a bit raw it doesn’t matter.
Cook the pasta following the packet instructions, drain and transfer it to the pan. Stir all together at medium heat for 1-2 minutes and serve.
A final note on lemon. On the one hand it’s not a perfect match with zucchini and tomatoes, but on the other it gives a very interesting note. If you’re bold enough give it a try, otherwise this zucchini recipe can live without it.
More pasta recipes, more pasta sauces, and some tips on how to cook pasta properly