by The Joyous Kitchen
Garlic. Olive oil. Rich pork sausage. The delicious combination of bitterly anise-y broccolini next to the sweet herbs and actual anise in Italian sausage, combined with the rich fat is delightful. Garlic infused olive oil adds a sweet funky depth. This is comfort food at its finest. If I’m so moved (and they’re in season), I’ll throw in a chopped roma tomato or three. It changes the subtle sauce, but can really be a wonderful in season addition. The key to making simple dishes taste phenomenal is to source their few ingredients carefully. The recipe which follows is beautiful in its simplicity and an absolutely lovely offering in a pinch. It’s also one of my family’s favorite dishes. This can also be made with fresh broccoli florets and is even a dish you can add the stems into (just trim the fibrous parts off first).
Penne with Broccoli Rabe and Spicy Italian Sausage
1 lb. Penne pasta
1 lb. or 1 bunch of broccoli rabe (also called broccolini), chopped into 1.5″ pieces.
3 large Italian sausages (roughly 2/3 to 3/4 lb.)
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 large cloves of garlic minced or put through a press
¼ cup white wine
Salt, to taste
Pepper, to taste
In a large saucepan over low heat, combine garlic and olive oil and a dash of salt. Cook for ten minutes to infuse the olive oil with garlic. If you notice the garlic turning darker at all, you have the heat too high.
Remove sausage casings and crumble meat inside; add to the pan and increase the heat to medium. Cook until sausages are browned and starting to ooze fat. Add wine and scrape bottom/sides of pan to deglaze.
In a big pot of well salted water, cook pasta according to package/preference.
Add broccoli rabe, more salt and pepper to taste in the saucepan with sausage and garlic. At this point I like to cover the saucepan to allow the broccoli rabe to steam in its own moisture, but feel free to leave it uncovered and sautee the broccoli rabe; in any case, your broccoli should take about as much time to cook as the fusilli does to boil.
Before draining pasta, reserve 1/2 cup of the pasta water.
Drain pasta and toss with ingredients in the pan and reserved pasta water.
Serve topped with freshly grated parmesan and minced fresh flat leaf (Italian) parsley, if you have it on hand.
