I’ve said it many times: a recipe is just a guideline. There are times, though, when I stick closer to that guide than others. Last night, I pretty much went rogue.
Ken found a recipe for me to try in The Complete One Pot from America’s Test Kitchen. We’ve been continuing to follow his diet restrictions, although he says he’s ready to start adding a few things back into his diet. He said that he thought orchiette with broccoli rabe and sausage sounded good. He read off the ingredient list to me, and I agreed.
We decided right up front to make a change; instead of broccoli rabe, we decided to use broccolini. I knew it would change the flavor profile of the dish, because broccolini lacks the bitterness of broccoli rabe. But we both love broccolini, and felt it would combine well with the other ingredients.
The other planned change didn’t really affect the dish. Orchiette isn’t always available, and this was a week when there wasn’t any. In its place, I picked up a pasta shape I’d never seen before, shellbows. It sort of a cross between elbow pasta and small shells, with an interesting twist. They look like they could be the shell of some eccentric mollusk. I’ll have to use them sometime when I’m cooking for our grandkids.
I think I wrote recently about reading a recipe carefully and all the way through. I did not follow my own advice, at least not until Saturday night. I pulled the cookbook off the shelf to see if needed a head start for Sunday’s dinner. That’s when I discovered that the recipe is intended to be cooked in an Instant Pot! And we don’t have one. Ken had missed that, and since I hadn’t looked at the recipe, I wasn’t aware of that. Some cookbooks that include Instant Pot recipes will include alternate methods for stovetop cooking, but not this one. Time to improvise.
The more time I spent reading the recipe, the more changes I made. It called for a full pound of pasta, and I discussed how that’s too much for just Ken and me just last week. I decided to use just a half pound. Plus, given the amount of meat and veggies, it would have been mostly pasta. Cutting it back made a better balance of protein, vegetables, and starch. Also, I decided to cook the pasta separately; I’ve become a believer in the one-pot method where the pasta cooks in the sauce, but since I was cutting the amount of pasta, I wasn’t aware unsure how much to adjust the amount of liquid. Finally, I decided to include mushrooms. Ken either picked up a GI bug or ate something dodgy, and was pretty miserable on Friday. (Not a good thing, especially because it was his birthday, but we spread out the celebration). I hadn’t used the mushrooms that would have been part of the dinner I’d planned for Friday, so I figured, why not add them here?
The result of all my changes and experimenting turned out really well. It was also relatively quick to put together. I had the vegetables cut up and garlic chopped ahead of time, but I spent 30 minutes or less in active cooking time. I’d like to try this with broccoli rabe sometime, but this milder version was truly delicious.
Pasta with Broccolini and Sausage
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 bunch broccolini, cut into 1 1/2- inch pieces
4 ounces mushrooms, sliced
1/4 teaspoon salt
12 ounces sweet or hot Italian sausage or Italian turkey sausage, casings removed (3 links)
4 garlic, minced
1 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/4 cup dry white wine
1/4 cup chicken broth
8 ounces orchiette or similar sized pasta (shells, elbows, rotini, etc)
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
Heat a large pot of water and cook pasta according to package directions. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup cooking water.
Meanwhile, heat 1 tablespoon of olive oil in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add broccolini, mushrooms, and salt. Saute, stirring occasionally, until broccolini in softened, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove vegetables from pan.
Add remaining tablespoon of olive oil. Add sausage and cook, breaking up meat with a wooden spoon, until browned, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and seasonings, and cook until fragrant, 30 seconds. Stir in wine and broth, scraping up any browned bits.
Reduce heat to medium, and add cooked pasta and vegetables to the pan. Mix and, if it seems dry, add some of the cooking water. Remove from heat and stir Parmesan into the pasta. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve, passing extra Parmesan separately. Makes 4 servings.
Happy eating!
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