The Cartoon Kitchen: Prunes and Sausage
This week's Cartoon Kitchen features Serious Eats' cartoonist in residence Larry Gonick's spin on a sausage dish. —Ed Levine
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Entries from Recipes tagged with 'sausage'
The Cartoon Kitchen: Wild Rice Pilaf
This week's Cartoon Kitchen features Serious Eats' cartoonist in residence Larry Gonick's spin on a wild rice pilaf. Enjoy! —Ed Levine
AppleJack Dogs
After getting through our first birthday at Serious Eats this week, we tip our hats to Laird’s AppleJack Distillery over in Scobeyville, New Jersey, lighting the 227th candle on the cake this year. Woo, geezers.
America's oldest apple brandy tastes sweeter than French Calvados but stronger than a chuggable Strongbow or Bulmers cider. It's an obvious favorite here in the cocktail department, but in solid food form? Gasp! Never have we ever.
The all-American booze can be spilled all over sausages, hot dogs, or wieners of any kind in this recipe. Somewhere out in Scobeyville right now, the Laird family has stopped picking Winesaps, Staymans, and Pippins to start fermenting. And that'll hopefully continue for another 227 years. Pick up a 750mL bottle of historic AppleJack—about six pounds of apples goes into each— and check-out other recipes on Laird's homepage.
Dinner Tonight: Broccoli Rabe With Pepperoni and Breadcrumbs
It was a case of mistaken identity. I bought some broccoli rabe at the farmers' market and decided to pull out my brand spanking-new copy of the Silver Spoon to see what I could do.
What a perfect choice, I thought, considering one of the greatest uses of that vegetable is with orecchiette with sausage. Surely, this definitive Italian volume would have other inspired dishes with the vegetable. But to my surprise, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Nope, even the orecchiette dish that I so loved used turnip greens instead of broccoli rabe. A little sleuthing on Wikipedia led me to the scientific name of Brassica rapa. And what would you know, the scientific name for broccoli rabe is Brassica rapa? Thinking I had just figured everything out, I decided that turnip greens were actually the same thing. That’s how I finally found this recipe.
Of course I was dead wrong. Turnip greens and broccoli rabe aren’t the same thing. But by that time, I didn’t much care. In fact, the original called for ham, too, but all I had was some locally made pepperoni. So basically, I changed nearly every crucial ingredient in this dish yet still made it out of the clear. The slightly bitter pull of the greens was balanced with spicy pepperoni, and all cooled by the breadcrumbs. It was a fortunate mistake.
Dinner Tonight: Broccoli Rabe and Sausage Pasta
Sure, it’s a classic. So, why have I been getting it so wrong? Because of my misadventures with the dish, the fiancée had sworn off broccoli rabe as disgusting, and I was left to try to get my fill any way I could.
That usually meant in its cold incarnation at buffet lines. It wasn’t working out. That’s when I saw it in a wicker basket at the farmers' market. It was going quickly. An employee would grab a big armful, plop it on the basket, and immediately someone would buy it. I watched as two different people walked off with huge bags of the stuff. It was time.
My quest was how to do this classic correctly. I’d been led wrong before, so I searched through my massive stacks to find one that seemed perfect. It had to be simple—dead simple—with nothing much besides the sausage and broccoli rabe. Surprisingly, the version that looked the best was the Joy of Cooking version. I used a different pasta and decided to leave out the oil—my sausage was fatty enough. But for those without fear, a couple tablespoons of olive oil would make this a heartier dish. We didn’t need it.
The fiancée finished her plate.
Cook the Book: Pasta with Peas, Sausage, and Mint
As the week winds on, Eric Gower, the author of The Breakaway Cook
Cook the Book: Potato, Sausage, and Ricotta Omelet From Basilicata
What I love about this omelet from Nancy Harmon Jenkins's Cucina del Sole is its versatility. It's substantial enough to serve as a light supper with a tossed salad or a plate of fresh tomatoes, fresh basil, and mozzarella drizzled with a little extra-virgin olive oil. Of course it would make a stupendous breakfast, brunch, or lunch dish as well. Although the recipe calls for hot cured sausage, you can easily substitute fresh hot or sweet sausage instead.
