Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Pasta with Sausage, Basil and Mustard

I picked up an old Food and Wine magazine on my way out to the pool the other day and was pleased to find it was the 30th anniversary issue from Sept 2008. It has some great throwback recipes, wines, restaurant reviews, etc going back to the 80's when Food and Wine magazine first went into publication. They did some great "best of" recipes as well. My favorite section was the 30 best "fast" recipes published over the past 30 years. I was excited to see the Salmon with Tomato Vinaigrette recipe that I wrote about a few months back featured there!!
The Pasta with Sausage, Basil and Mustard was noted as a staff favorite, so I decided to give it a whirl as we were having my brother-in-law Nate over for dinner after work.
I followed the recipe exactly except that I used hot chicken sausage instead of pork and red wine instead of white (it was already in my glass so it was easy enough to throw in). The mustard flavor was very different from any pasta I've ever had but worked really well with the sausage. I would say the recipe was really very yummy except that I would next time add slightly more mustard, maybe some caramelized onions or some other vegetable to add another layer of flavor, and I would add a ladle or so of the pasta cooking water to the sauce to thin it out and make it a little silkier. My cream sauce was a bit thick.
I served an Arugula salad with my balsamic vinaigrette and some garlic toasts alongside the pasta which we topped with a generous sprinkle of freshly grated Parmesan Reggiano. Was a super quick, hearty weeknight meal.
Nate brought over the wine as he always does and it was one of our recent go-to's, the Dancing Bull Cab from California. Nate introduced us to this wine and it really is a great find for the money (about $9). I actually heard it featured on the Today Show a few months ago when they did a segment on best inexpensive wines. Look for the red label as pictured below on the Zinfandel bottle but it's the cab...

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