At the urging of various online friends and readers, Mike and I have officially joined the ranks of home sausage makers. We’d “made” sausage previously using plain ground pork, but actually grinding ours in the recently excavated grinder was a first tonight.
The same morning I pulled out the top round roast previously mentioned, I also got out a 3.5 lb. fresh ham roast with intentions of doing something creative with it in the crockpot today. Unfortunately the morning got away from me and I was faced with braising it in the oven instead of the crockpot. No big deal really since it was pouring outside, but I still couldn’t decide what to do with it, nothing was really striking my fancy.
So I decided to turn it into sausage and consulted twitter for ideas of what to do with my fresh sausage. There were a number of ideas thrown out, including one for making pasta with it. Ding! I could combine my current homemade pasta obsession with my new grinding obsession and we’d have something delicious for dinner.
This was seriously good and we’re already arguing about who gets the leftovers for lunch this week.
*****
Fettucini with Sausage Tomato Cream Sauce*
serves 2 with leftovers
take off from this Epicurious recipe
Pasta:
all purpose flour :: just over 1 cup
eggs :: 2
Sausage ::
ground pork :: 1 lb
sage, fresh chopped :: 2 tsp
oregano, fresh chopped :: 1 tsp
pepper, fresh ground :: 1/4 tsp
kosher salt :: 1.5 tsp
nutmeg, ground :: pinch
cayenne, ground :: pinch
Sauce ::
olive oil :: 1 Tbs
butter :: 1 Tbs
onion, thinly sliced :: half
garlic, chopped :: 3 cloves
Italian seasoning :: 2 tsp
red wine :: 1/2 cup
diced tomatoes :: 1 pint
sugar :: 2 Tbs**
heavy cream :: 1.5 cups
salt and pepper :: to taste
parmesan, grated :: 1/4 cup
Make your pasta dough by combining the eggs and flour until they form a rough ball of dough. Knead a couple of times on a floured surface, then wrap in plastic wrap and set aside for at least 30 minutes. Then roll either by hand or with a pasta machine, adding flour as needed until dough is not sticky. Cut into fettucini, toss with corn meal to keep it from sticking together and set aside until needed.
We ground the pork by putting it through the grinder twice. Then we mixed in the spices and gently incorporated them throughout. You could do the same with ground pork from the farmer’s market or store. I then set it aside to meld a bit while I got everything else ready to go.
For the sauce, heat the oil and butter in a deep saute pan, add the onion and saute until just tender. Add the sausage and saute until cooked through, breaking up as it cooks. Add the garlic and the Italian seasoning, cook until the garlic smells delish. Drain any extra liquid off of the pan.
Add the red wine and simmer until most of it cooks off. Drain the tomatoes most of the way and add to the pan with sugar if desired. Simmer until any juices are cooked off. Add the cream and simmer gently while you cook the pasta.
Drain the pasta and toss. Top with parmesan and enjoy.
* I’m listing the ingredients first, ala Shuna’s convincing reasoning.
** our home canned tomatoes are quite acidic this year, hence the sugar
*****
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Mark and I make Italian sausage. I just love the process, and I like being able to add the ingredients I like best.
Your dinner looks divine.
Now that’s the way to do it. Make your own pasta and grind your own sausage. Bravo! I bet it was outrageously delicious.
That looks fantastic. Wow. You make me want a meat grinder.
Congrats on the sausage! I plan on playing around with that once the weather is conducive to smoking again.
Thanks for the link to Shuna’s post on recipe formatting too. It makes sense for readability, assembling the mise, and scaling. Definitely an “aha” moment.
We were into sausage making years ago but then the kids came and kind of screwed up our day long sausage making events. Your pasta looks devine! You should check out Bruce Aidells sausage book. It’s a good one.
Well, you definitely didn’t disappoint with your sausage making! I second the Bruce Aidells book, I have his one called flying sausages, which are made with ground chicken and turkey.
How funny- I just today linked your site to mine, and found out we had both posted about sausage making! Shall I say Great Minds Think Alike, or is that too presumptuous?
Willa
Anita :: that’s what I like about making sausage too – putting exactly what I want into it.
Elise :: Thank you, it was!
Whitney :: even if you don’t have a meat grinder you can make your own sausage with good ground pork from the farmer’s market or a local butcher. Give it a try!
Saara :: Yeah, Shuna’s post was a bit of a *head desk* moment for me. Why didn’t that ever occur to me?
Kendra :: I’ll see about getting his book from the library – thanks for the recommendation!
Pam :: I’ll see about that one too, thanks.
Willa :: Not too presumptuous at all. Thanks for the link.