summer sungold sausage ragù
It’s a ragú, but not like, a ragú. It’s not time yet.
This pasta dish was designed to make use of an heirloom sungold cherry tomato surplus, an unnecessarily huge bag of basil, and a pack of lingering mild Italian sausages discovered at the bottom of the freezer. While definitely more ragú than not, the “summer” part of it comes from the golden tomato broth that forms the sauce—which, when emulsified with the fat from the sausage, manages to be silky and light at the same time and absolutely nothing at all like rich tomato sauces meant to facilitate hibernation.
The pasta shape featured here is calamarata, a jumbo shallow tube shaped like—surprise!—a calamari. You can also use paccheri, the longer version of this shape that’s named for the slapping sound they make against the bowl when you eat them; that alone is enough motivation for me to seek them out. However, any tube pasta would work: penne, regular-scale rigatoni, whatever. So would any other kind of sausage: chicken, turkey, or I suppose plant-based, just as long as it can be crumbled. Pork is still best.
While it uses only a pan and not the oven, it’s still cooked, and maybe A Lot for when the temperature is raw-food hot out. Yet this is defiantly still a warm-weather dish, calling for chilled red wine and the pot right on the table with you for seconds.
Recipe
The perfect chill ragù for the dead heat of summer: sausage, basil, and a ton of sungolds, simmered in buttery white wine sauce and tossed with chunky pasta.
Effortful time: 15 minutes
Total time: 30 minutes
You need
1 lb. mild Italian sausage
1 tsp. olive oil
1 tbsp. tomato paste
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
3/4 cup white wine (can sub chicken broth)
1 pint cherry tomatoes; extra points for heirlooms like sungolds
1 tbsp. butter
12 oz. sturdy sauce-catching pasta, like calamarata, paccheri, rigatoni, or penne
1/2 cup grated parmigiano reggiano
A handful of fresh basil, torn or sliced into ribbons
Kosher salt and pepper, to taste
Make it
Boil water for pasta. Obviously salt it.
Brown the sausage. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Slice open the sausages and crumble the meat into the pan. Brown it while breaking it up with a spatula or spoon until the pieces are small and evenly sized.
Sauté the garlic in the sausage pan. Scoot all the sausage to the side and turn the heat to low so the oil pools a little. Gently sauté the garlic until fragrant, 30-45 seconds. Combine with the sausage.
Caramelize the tomato paste. Add the tomato paste and stir to coat the sausage and garlic. Continue to cook 1 minute more until the tomato paste begins to caramelize (aka, turn a little orange).
Create your sauce. Pour in the white wine, then add the cherry tomatoes. Bring to a low simmer until cherry tomatoes have burst; this should happen by the time your pasta is cooked.
Put the pasta in to cook right around this point. Cook this til 2 minutes under the lower number on the packet.
Sauce your pasta. When your pasta is ready, use a slotted spoon to transfer it directly into the sauce pan. Fold together over low heat and add the butter and cheese, which you’ll need to stir well to gently emulsify. Add splashes of pasta water until the pasta is cooked. Toss in the basil ribbons and do one more big stir.
Finish it up. Serve with more cheese, a tangy red wine, and a spoon for the pan.