- Red Potatoes
- Many tomatoes of the red and heirloom variety
- Yellow Onions
- Celery
- Concord Grapes
- and Two Bunches of Arugula
Since, of course, Arugula is one of my favorite greens due to it's spicy fun flavor and I had an excess of tomatoes I went looking for a good old fashioned quick pasta recipe for a Tuesday night dinner.
This recipe is what I politely and lovingly call peasant food. Essentially it's made of some sort of cheep meat (in this case Italian sausage), pasta, and whatever other veg that one might have on hand. Everything gets thrown together quickly and goes from stove top to table in under 30 minutes (unless of course you have take pictures of everything. The Husband's good friend Steve was coming over for dinner and this felt like a quick fix.
First I stemmed, cleaned and dried the arugula. Then, since I didn't have any grape tomatoes, I quickly seeded and chopped up a big fat heirloom to get about 2 cups of tomato mush. When seeding a tomato cut the tomato in half and smoosh your fingers into those pockets of seeds and jelly to pull out the seeds. do it over a fine mesh strainer. The jelly that surrounds the seeds is where all that yummy tomato goodness is and the strainer will allow you to add the jelly back into the dish sans seeds. A win win.
After mopping up spilled tomato juice and washing off my hands I was ready to start cooking. I broke down 3 Italian sausages and threw them into the skillet with a little bit of olive oil. Once browned I drained the fat and added in the garlic and gave it a quick toss. Once the smell of garlic permeated the room it was time to pour in the tomatoes and let them cook down for 10-15 minutes. the Recipe suggest doing this covered, which I did for the first half of the cooking process, but then I removed the cover to let the sauce reduce. In my opinion pasta sauces should always seem a little on the thicker side. It condenses the flavors and the sauce can always be loosened up with some reserved pasta water (ALWAYS reserve some pasta water).
Final steps: Throw the arugula (torn to bits) on top of the cooking sauce and let it wilt down tossing gently. Toss in some fettuccine and top it off with a generous amount of Pecorino Romano.
The end result:
THE VERDICT:
Like all peasant food this dish was delightfully simple in flavor and satisfying. The Arugula was spicy and peppery and worked well next to the sausage.I would certainly make this recipe again although next time I think I might chop up the arugula a little bit more, the pieces were quite big and were hard to chew at times. The original recipe called for Baby Arugula, I tried to accommodate by tearing up the arugula as much as possible but I probably could have gone for a finer chop. Either way, it was eagerly consumed by all at the dinner table. I think the men were satisfied
The Recipe
Recipe credit goes to Ivy Manning at Cooking Light and can be found here.
- 3/4 lb of fettuccine
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 6 ounces Italian turkey sausage
- 2 teaspoons minced garlic
- 2 cups seeded, chopped tomatoes
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 3 cups arugula
- 2 ounces grated Pecorino Romano cheese
- Cook pasta according to package directions, omitting salt and fat. Drain in a colander over a bowl, reserving 2/3 cup cooking liquid.
- While pasta cooks, heat oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Remove casings from sausage. Break sausage into bite-sized pieces and add to pan; cook 3 minutes or until browned, stirring frequently to crumble.
- Add garlic; cook 30 seconds, stirring constantly.
- Add tomatoes and pepper; cover and cook 5 minutes. Mash tomatoes with the back of a wooden spoon to break them up.
- Reduce heat to low, and cook 5-10 minutes until thick.
- Remove pan from heat. Add pasta, reserved 2/3 cup cooking liquid, and arugula; toss well. Sprinkle with pecorino Romano.
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