Pasta Alla Norcina Recipe

SERVES

Serves 2, Double The Sausage, Pasta, Wine And Cream For 4 People

Ingredients

  • 1/2 Lb of Felicetti Penne
  • 1/2 lb of Italian sausage, crumbled
  • 3 Garlic Cloves, peeled and crushed
  • 3 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil
  • 1/2 cup of dry white wine
  • 2 cups of heavy cream
  • 1 Cup of Pecorino Romano, grated
  • Pasta Water as needed
  • Sea Salt
  • Fresh Cracked Black Pepper

Method

  1. Get a pot of salted boiling water alongside a wide pan to cook your sauce. Get the pan on medium-high heat and add the olive oil and the garlic and start to infuse that garlic flavor in the oil. After a minute for so and the oil is hot, add the sausage, season with salt, and begin to break it up with a flat bottom spoon.
  2. Once the meat is well browned and the garlic smells fragrant and is browned, you can remove the garlic. Now turn off the heat if you have a gas stove and add the wine. Heat back on and reduce that wine until it’s almost all gone.
  3. Once the meat is browned I know I’m about 10 minutes out from wrapping this dish up so I’m going to add the pasta. It cooks for about 11 minutes so I’m going to pull it at 8-9 minutes and finish cooking in the sauce.
  4. The wine should be fully reduced by now, go ahead and add the cream and cook on medium-low and bring it to a simmer and reduce until thickened. You may find it needs seasoning now but wait to add salt until you add the pecorino, it very salty and will go a long way in seasoning the pasta.
  5. After 8-9 minutes of cooking, add the pasta to the sauce while reserving the pasta water and finish cooking the pasta by marrying it with the sauce for the final two minutes of cooking. The pasta will be absorbing the sauce as it finished cooking, if it tights up too much, add some more pasta water and work it back in. Keep doing that until later pasta is perfectly al dente, at which point you’ll kill the heat, then kill the heat, and work in a few handfuls of that pecorino cheese tossing and stirring it in quickly to avoid it melting improperly and being stringy. Make any final consistency adjustments with pasta water and plate immediately with some extra pecorino and some fresh cracked black pepper.