I know yesterday I said that linguine was my favourite pasta. However, their are a few other paste that I have become familiar with since I was on a stage at De Cecco, one of the best pasta companies in Italy. Paccheri is one of them. They suit a variety of sauce styles and also can be filled as mini cannelloni. Perhaps this will be my next paccheri rendezvous.
Serves 2
150g paccheri, olive oil, half onion finely diced, chilli sliced, 1 garlic clove finely diced, 100 g pork and fennel sausage, 1 punnet cherry tomatoes sliced in half, half yellow capsicum (bell pepper) membrane removed, 2 T tomato paste, 100 ml red wine (stock or water can be substituted if none on hand)
Lets start with the capsicum and cherry tomatoes. Place the cherry tomatoes on an oiled baking tray, sprinkle with salt and thyme and put in the oven for 40 mins at 140°C. For the capsicum, blaze the skin on the flame of the gas stove so that it is black and blistered (otherwise in the oven at 220°C). Allow to cool and then peel the skin off.
It is time to organise the pasta. Bring some salted water to the boil and add the pasta and cook according to the advice on the packet.
Take the sausage out of the skin, add a little salt and roll into little bowls. Pan fry with a little olive oil until golden. Take out and put aside. In the same pan, add 1 Tbl oil and sweat the garlic, onion and chilli on a medium flame. When the onion is translucent add the tomato paste and wine (or substitute). Stir and mix well. After 3 minutes add the cherry tomatoes and capsicum. It may start to dry out. Add some water from the pasta as this contains starch and will give it some thickness and velvety goodness. When the sauce has become homogeneous from the addition of water, turn off while the pasta finishes cooking.
Drain the pasta and add to the sauce. Coat all the paccheri well and serve with basil and parmesan.
Filed under: Recipes , capsicum, cherry tomatoes, paccheri, pasta, red wine, salsiccia
The sausage picernese has no paragon!