Sunday, April 20, 2008

Linguine Ratatouille with Italian Sausage


I've been cooking up a storm this evening. I'm sure you'll see the product in due time. But first, I need to catch up on older posts.

A week or so ago, I picked up a cookbook I hadn't given much attention to since Giz first sent it to me.



When I'm going through a cookbook, I'll usually sit with little sticky notes to mark the pages that look interesting to me. Maybe I was hungry when I sat down to look through this cookbook, but almost half of the pages have been tagged. I'd say that makes for a good cookbook. I think the trick is attractive and plentiful pictures. Like my food blog preferences, I like to see the food. It tells me what kind of product I can expect if I make the recipe (correctly) myself.

Since basil is one of my favourite herbs (parsley is another favourite), I decided to go with Linguine with Rataouille Sauce. I added spicy Italian sausage.

Linguine Ratatouille with Italian Sausage



3 tbsp olive oil
1 onion, cut into thin slices
1 green or red bell pepper, cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 small eggplant (about 1/2 pound), cut into 1/2 inch dice
1 zucchini (about 1/2 pound), cut into 1/2 inch dice
3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 2/3 cups canned cursshed tomatoes in thick puree (one 15 ounce can)
2tsp wine vinegar
3/4 pound linguine
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp thin sliced basic leaves
3 hot Italian sausages

1. Cut up sausage into smaller pieces. Cook the sausage and then remove from pan in order to cook the remaining ingredients.

2. In a large frying pan, heat the oil over moderate heat (I added less oil since there was fat from the sausages remaining). Add the onion and bell pepper and cook, stirring occasionally, until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the eggplant, zucchini, garlic, salt and black pepper. Reduce the heat to moderately low and cook, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.



3. Add the tomatoes and simmer, covered, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes. Stir in the vinegar. Toward the end of the 10 minutes, stir the sausage into the tomato and vegetable mixture.



4. In a large pot of boiling, salted water, cook the linguine (I used spaghettini) until just done, about 12 minutes. Reserve about 1/2 cup of pasta-cooking water. Drain the pasta and toss with the vegetables, the 1/2 cup basil, and if the pasta seems too dry, some of the reserved pasta-cooking water. Serve topped with 2 tbsp of basil.





I'm submitting this to Ruth's Presto Pasta Night roundup. StumbleUpon

14 comments:

Peter M said...

The veg & sausage combo sounds good. Next time try Penne...it would match better with the chunyness of the sauce.

Anonymous said...

I LOOOVE ratatouille. This is totally the perfect pasta for DH and I. We are going to have to try this!

Elle said...

Any leftovers? I'm looking for breakfast. ;) Looks gooooood!

Rosie said...

This Sounds really delish!! So bookmarked!!

Rosie x

Núria said...

Hola Psychgrad! Pasta dishes always look so attractive to me!!! Your Ratatouille is like our Samfaina and I adore it!!!! I bet my daughter would beg for your dish :D. Will have it in mind for my next pasta dish. Thanks darling!

Anonymous said...

I'm pretty amused about your habit of using stickies and steering clear of cookbooks without tons o pictures. Until embarassingly recently, I refused to consult or purchase a cookbooks that didn't have pictures in it... which rules out waaaay to many excellent books. I'm recovering, learning to be inspired by titles instead. Recipes really are marketing themselves, so if there's no picture and a blah sounding title.. well...

BTW, the pasta looks excellent. Maybe it's because I'm craving spagetthi right now (it's a rainy day in D.C., good day for comfort food), but I'm glad you didn't opt for Peter's penne this time around. :)

Valerie Harrison (bellini) said...

Sounds like something I would want for dinner tonight Psych:D

grace said...

this is my kind of dish, from the peppers and squash all the way down to the basil. and i agree that pictures are extremely important in cookbooks. no pictures, no purchase. :)

Pixie said...

This sounds wonderful! You have been awarded- details on blog.

That Girl said...

This is the worst time of year for you to post pasta recipes. I'm DYING here.

Anonymous said...

That sounds like a great combination! I think if I say Rataouille my kids will eat it!

test it comm said...

That Ratatouille looks like it is full of vegetable goodness. I really like the addition of the Italian sausage!

Ruth Strong said...

I have several books that are filled with post its sticking out from every where but others that only have about 1 or 2 post its.... it makes me sad to get a book like that.

This dish is a winner though, can't wait to see what else you produce from the book.

Ruth Daniels said...

Looks awesome, thanks for sharing with Presto Pasta Nights.

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