3 to 4 Oz. of Italian sausage with the casing
removed.
14 Oz. can of chopped tomatoes, plus 3 to 4 ounces of diced tomatoes.
1 Cup of diced onion.
4 Cloves garlic, minced.
1/2 Cup of red wine.
1/2 to 1 Cup of fresh arugula.
1 Tbsp. chopped fresh oregano and sage or basil.
3/4 Cup grated Parmesan cheese.
Enough rigatoni pasta for 2, about three handsful.
Directions:
Cook the pasta as you like and set aside.
While the pasta is cooking, add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil to a large skillet and saute the onions. When translucent, add the minced garlic.
When the garlic is aromatic, add the sausage. Break it up and cook until brown.
Add the 1/2 cup red wine, followed by the tomatoes. Add spices as desired, usually oregano, basil & thyme. Let simmer for at least 30 minutes. If it bcomes too thick add a bit more of the unused tomatoes and reseason.
At the end of the 30 minutes add the rigatoni plus the chopped fresh seasonings. Let it simmer until the pasta has absorbed the sauce. Serve with the Parmesan cheese over it.
Notes:
This recipe is an adaptation of one from Bon Appétit (June 2008), p. 115.
I learned from this experience what I should have already been aware of. Pasta is graded by density from spaghetti to linguine to fettuccine to penne to rigatoni to manicotti to lasagne. Pasta at the dense end (lasagna and manicotti) requires cooking in the sauce, while pasta at the less dense end (spaghetti and linguine) can have the sauce ladled over it. Pasta in the middle can be indeterminate. But the rigatoni really needs to be added to the sauce when the sauce is almost cooked and allowed to absorb the flavor and to become less chewy. Ladling the sauce over the rigatoni will work, but it is not optimal.
Italian sausage comes, of course, in different flavors. Choose the one your stomach will permit. This time, one link provided 3.3 ounces, enough for two. But do use sausage of some sort and not some other meat.
The Bon Appétit version uses arugula, an expensive green if the store sells it as an herb and not as a vegetable. I substituted mixed greens. There was some arugula in it.
The Bon Appétit version was also designed to serve 6 and used two 28 ounce cans of tomatoes, one diced and one crushed. To serve 2, about 16 to 18 ounces will do. Unfortunately, there are no cans that size. So I used one 14.5 ounce can of chopped tomatoes (which actually looked crushed) and part of a 10 ounce can of diced tomatoes. Cf. Ingredients . The excess tomatoes can be used to keep the sauce from becoming too thick ... or it can be used in another recipe the next day, e. g., a scallopini recipe.