Did you know different shapes of pasta's have different purposes? The thicker the pasta, the better for thicker sauces, but a pasta like angel hair would go better with a thinner, lighter, sauce. Orecchiette pasta is one of my most favorite pasta shapes, it's translation from Italian actually means little ears. Not only are they adorable, but it's a great pasta shape for holding a little olive oil and sauce. Look how cute those little peas look nestled in there! I like to use light white wine and olive oil sauces to make this pasta shine. This dish is so flavorful and yet magically light tasting. I honestly wasn't a huge pea fan until I started making this years and years ago. Now I love peas with a passion. This is a great meal for serving company it's a pretty large portion and the sausage makes it heartier. Plus it comes together in relatively one pan (minus the pasta pot). You'll want this dinner in your back pocket, it's delicious, and can be made from start to absolute finish in 45 minutes. Think of the extra time you can spend conversing with your family or guests instead of in the kitchen stressing. For me, it's also a few extra minutes to push my kids out on the swing before meal time. Hope you enjoy this heart warming dish that really brings everyone together who eats it.
Ingredients:
- 1 package of Sweet Italian Turkey Sausage
- 1 1/2 cup of frozen peas
- 1 sliced sweet vidalia onion
- 1 cup of halved cherry tomatoes
- 3 cloves of chopped garlic
- 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 T butter
- 1 cup of shredded Parmesan cheese
- 1/4 cup of red Zinfandel (the rest pairs nicely with dinner hint hint)
- 16 oz of Orecchiatte pasta
- 1 T Worcestershire sauce
- 1 cup of reserved pasta water (*This is when you carefully take out a cup of the boiling pasta water, that has already been cooking the pasta for a few minutes. That way you're getting a salty, starchy, infused water that helps bring the sauce together.)
- Fresh herbs: here I used a couple sprigs of basil, rosemary, and oregano. The fresh rosemary would be the most important to have in this particular dish.
- 4 T fine sea salt
- 1 T fresh ground black pepper
- 1 tsp dried red pepper flakes
- Lots of love for a shareable pasta dish like this one!
Directions:
- Slice your onions, chop your garlic, halve your cherry tomatoes, roughly chop your fresh herbs, and have your ingredients ready. I like to have all ingredients prepped and ready because the rest comes together while you're boiling the pasta. It's that quick.
- Put your pot on for pasta water and add in 2 hefty T of sea salt to the water, follow pasta directions on package.
- While the water starts to heat up for the pasta, heat up a non-stick frying/saute' pan on a medium heat.
- Once you can feel a heat raising up above the frying pan, add in 1/4 cup of olive oil. Seems like a lot but it's not, trust me.
- Add in the red pepper flakes to the oil.
- Add in the sliced onions and sausage to the pan. I squeeze the sausage out of the casings directly into the pan.
- Allow the onions and sausage to cook for a minute or two without stirring to get some color. Then stir really well breaking up some of the sausage with a spatula as you do. Then let the onions and sausage sit for another minute or two and repeat the process.
- When the sausage looks mostly browned and the onions have a good caramelized color add in fresh chopped rosemary.
- Add in 1 T butter to the middle of the pan as well as the chopped garlic.
- Cook the garlic for a good minute but don't let it burn.
- Season sausage and onions with 1 T sea salt.
- Add in the 1/4 cup of wine and try and stir up any extra browned bits from the bottom of the pan. The sauce is starting to come together.
- After the alcohol cooks out of the wine and it starts to thicken up, add in the peas and halved cherry tomatoes. I like to add in a dash of Worcestershire sauce here, but that's up to you.
- Add in the 1 cup of reserved pasta water to the sausage pan and stir together.
- The pasta should be done, so now we'll toss everything together.
- Turn off the heat of the pan with the sausage and peas.
- Pour the drained pasta into a large glass bowl with room for the other ingredients.
- Pour the sausage, peas, tomatoes, and sauce mixture over top of the pasta.
- Carefully, sauce and pasta all together.
- Drizzle the pasta mixture with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle with Parmesan, and any extra fresh herbs you might have. Grind or sprinkle the ground black pepper on top.
I will try and have step by step videos on my instagram account @rosemaryandgrace
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