Sunday Night Pea and Spicy Sausage Pasta

Photo credit: Nicole Franzen, Courtesy Rizzoli

From Yahoo Food’s Cookbook of the Week: The Fat Radish Kitchen Diaries

Sunday Night Pea & Spicy Sausage Pasta

PHIL WINSER [co-owner of The Fat Radish]: My dear friend Richard and I used to work together at a catering company in London. On Sundays, we would spend all of our money to make this dish. We were obsessed with the idea of reducing things, so we’d let the sauce simmer for hours. Sometimes dinner wasn’t ready until two in the morning, and the friends we’d invited were long gone. When I came to the U.S. and learned about cooking with spicy sausage, I realized it was possible to get great flavor without spending all day leaning over a pot.

Serves 6–8

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 large yellow onion, thinly sliced
8 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 dried bay leaf
2 sprigs fresh thyme
coarse salt
½ teaspoon dried Italian herb mix (oregano, basil, rosemary, etc.)
¾ pound spicy pork sausage, meat removed from casings (discard casings)
1 (28-ounce) can diced tomatoes (preferably San Marzano)
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 cup frozen peas
1 pound rigatoni pasta, cooked in salted water until al dente
Freshly grated Parmesan for serving

Place the olive oil in a heavy pot set over medium heat. Add the onion, garlic, bay leaf, thyme, and a big pinch of salt. Cook, stirring now and then, until softened, 10 minutes. Push the onions to the side and add the dry herb mix to the middle of the pot and stir so that it can get a little toasty, about 30 seconds. Stir the herbs thoroughly into the onions. Add the sausage, turn the heat up to high and cook, stirring to break up the meat, until the sausage is crumbly and a bit browned, 10 minutes. Stir in the tomatoes and all of their juice and bring the mixture to a boil. Lower the heat and allow the sauce to simmer, stirring now and then, until it’s a bit reduced, about 30 minutes. Add the cream and peas to the pot and stir just to combine and until the peas are just defrosted, about a minute. Season the sauce with salt and toss with the just-cooked rigatoni. Serve with plenty of freshly grated Parmesan.

From the Yahoo Food Team: If you make this recipe at home, let us know what you think. We’d love to hear from you!