Cook the Book: Pork Sausage Spiedini with Bocconcini and Cherry Tomatoes
Skewered anything makes a perfect party food. It's such an efficient presentation, leaving one hand free to hold a cocktail glass or gesture wildly, Italian-style. Appropriately enough, today's Cook the Book recipe is an Italian sausage kabob, in which little sausage meatballs share a skewer with cherry tomatoes and mozzarella bocconcini.
Adapted from Simple Italian Snacks by Jason Denton and Kathryn Kellinger, these pork sausage spiedini are colorful, boldly flavored, and easily doubled or tripled for a crowd. For a really elegant presentation, be sure to shape your meatballs the same size as the tomatoes and cheese.
Win 'Simple Italian Snacks'
In addition to excerpting a recipe each day this week, we're giving away five (5) copies of Simple Italian Snacks Enter to win here »
Pork Sausage Spiedini with Bocconcini and Cherry Tomatoes
- serves 6 -
Adapted from Simple Italian Snacks: More Recipes from America's Favorite Panini Bar by Jason Denton and Kathryn Kellinger.
Ingredients:
12 ounces bulk sausage, or sausage meat removed from its casings
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 tablespoons minced fresh basil, plus additional for garnish
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 pound bocconcini
Fragrant extra-virgin olive oil, for drizzling
Procedure:
1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. In a medium bowl, use a fork to break up the bulk sausage. Add the minced garlic, the 3 tablespoons minced basil, the salt, and the pepper, and blend the ingredients with the fork. Form balls of the sausage mixture, the same size as the cherry tomatoes. (The heat of your hands will soften the fat in the meat and bind the shape.) Place the meatballs on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake until they are brown and have rendered their fat into the baking sheet, 12 minutes.
3. Thread the meatballs, bocconcini, and cherry tomatoes onto 12-inch bamboo skewers, alternating and using 2 of each per skewer. Drizzle olive oil over the skewers and sprinkle with the remaining minced basil.
Add a comment:
Previewing your comment:
HTML Hints
Some HTML is OK: <a href="URL">link</a>, <strong>strong</strong>, <em>em</em>
Comment Guidelines
Post whatever you want, just keep it seriously about eats, seriously. We reserve the right to delete off-topic or inflammatory comments. Learn more at our Comment Policy page.
If you see something not so nice, please, report an inappropriate comment.
4 Comments:
MISSING PAGE ALERT! When I click on the link to "Enter to win here" I get the error that says the page cannot be found.
juliebugsmama at 1:49PM on 12/01/08
Thank you for pointing that out! It's been fixed.
Michele Humes at 2:02PM on 12/01/08
Shouldn't there be cherry tomatoes in the ingredients list of the recipe.
Jilly at 8:33AM on 12/02/08
Is this recipe supposed to have one teaspoon of salt?? I used less than 1/2 tsp, and it was still too salty. Perhaps, I was supposed to use ground pork instead of pork sausage (which would already be salted)??
cherie pickett at 7:42PM on 12/15/08