Connie’s notes
Two ingredients determine the final flavor of the dish. The sausage and the cheese. You have the leeway to choose which sausage flavor is best with what cheese. Spicy sausage with a mild cheese like Colby Jack? Sweet sausage with salty Pecorino romano? The possible combinations are endless. Just remember that the combined flavor of these two ingredients is how the pasta sauce will taste. Check out my recommendation in the recipe.
Why sausage meat? I like sausages in their usual shape (meat in tube form) but it is the versatility of sausage meat (yes, sausage minus the casing) that I love. Sausage meat is the better option for many dishes that call for ground pork. I substitute all the time.
I remember a cooking show judge refer to sausage as a flavor carrier and I wholeheartedly agreed. When sausage is chopped or if the casing is ditched and the filling is crumbled, the number of carriers multiply and they are able to distribute the goodness better.
Admittedly, choosing the right sausage and cheese to go together is crucial. But the first step in the cooking process is just as important. Brown the sausage meat. The why requires a thorough explanation which I have written in a separate post.
There are vegetables in this pasta dish and they require varying lengths of cooking. Among these vegetables, carrot takes longest to cook so I threw the little pieces on top of the sausage meat. While the sausage meat browned, the carrot cubes started cooking in the steam. The peas and onion went in when the sausage meat was sufficiently browned.
Now that the vegetables have soaked up the delightful flavors of the browned sausage meat, it’s time to make the cheese sauce. Now, if you’re wondering cheese sauce is and whether it’s the same as nacho sauce, well, I’d say kind of. We sometimes make nacho cheese on the fly by heating shredded cheese with a little milk in the microwave.
How the cheese sauce is cooked in this pasta recipe is similar. Milk was poured into the pan with the browned sausage meat and vegetables, and cheese was added. As the milk heated up and turned bubbly, the cheese softened and, eventually, melted. It was a beautiful cheese sauce at that point but just a tad too thin to coat the noodles. So, I stirred in cream, left the sauce to bubble for a few moments, and then the barely cooked pasta was tossed in.
One last note. It’s about the pasta. It’s really best that they a bit undercooked when you put them in the pan — not al dente but less cooked than al dente — because you want them to finish cooking in the sauce.
Ingredients
- pasta (any shape and just a bit undercooked) enough for four people
- 200 to 300 grams sausages (about 7 to 10 oz) I recommend garlicky sausages, casings discarded, and meat crumbled into small chunks
- 1 carrot cut into half-inch cubes
- 1 onion roughly chopped
- ½ cup sweet peas thawed if frozen
- ¾ cup milk full-fat is recommended
- 100 grams cheese (about 3.5 oz) we used aged cheddar, crumbled or shredded
- ¾ cup cream
- salt to taste
- pepper to taste
Instructions
- Spread the sausage meat in a cold frying pan. Cook over medium heat without stirring for a couple of minutes to brown the underside.
- Add the carrot cubes and continue cooking with occasional stirring until the sausage meat is browned in most places.
- Add the peas and chopped onion. Stir and cook for a minute.
- Pour the milk. Add the cheese and stir.
- Lower the heat to medium and cook, with occasional stirring, just until the cheese melts.
- Stir in the cream and leave until bubbly.
- Taste the sauce. Season with salt and pepper, as needed.
- Add the pasta to the sauce and cook for a few minutes, tossing often, until the noodles are visibly coated with sauce.
- Serve the creamy cheesy sausage pasta with buttered toast on the side.
Pork spare ribs with black beans and chili garlic sauce
