Try pantry pasta for a satisfying spring supper
My pantry is brimming with ingredients to have on hand in case of “a rainy day.” Maybe yours is, too. And don’t get me started about my freezer. We can barely open it to get out a few ice cubes! So anytime I can come up with a meal that actually uses the ingredients in my larder, I am quite happy.
Such was the case not long ago. I asked my husband, Dirk, to pull something out of the freezer for dinner. When I returned to the kitchen, I saw that he had found a pound of lovely pre-cooked chicken and apple sausages, now defrosting on the counter. In addition, he got down a bag of pasta in a shape we haven’t used in a long time. The pasta was orecchiette, a penny-size round pasta known in Italy as “little ears.”
Because it is small, orecchiette is lovely to use in pasta salads, for example. Because one side is slightly indented, like an earlobe, the sauce clings to it beautifully. Orecchiette is a wonderful shape to use with a creamy alfredo sauce.
But I liked the idea of creating something lighter, yet satisfying, using only ingredients I had on hand. So the search was on.
A basket on my counter held onions and garlic. A quick trip to our pantry revealed a jar of roasted red peppers. The refrigerator offered up a partially consumed bottle of white wine, a bunch of fresh basil that needed to be eaten now, and a bag of shredded parmesan cheese. I needed to look no further. We were in business.
My hubby got to work slicing the sausages into rounds. I started by cutting the onions from top to root in thin wedges, and by chopping a couple of cloves of garlic. After heating some olive oil in a dutch oven, I sautéed the onions and garlic until they were translucent. Dirk took over and added the sausages to the pan to lightly brown them. Even though they were fully cooked, browning the chicken and apple sausages caramelizes them a little and offers up a wonderful sweet and savory flavor.
At this point, we set a pot of water to boil for the pasta. Not wanting to overcook the sausages and onions, we added the roasted pepper strips, covered the pan, and turned off the heat while we waited for the water to boil. A perfect time to open up that nice bottle of red wine.
Once the water was rapidly boiling. I threw in a tablespoon of salt, and stirred in the orecchiette. It would only take a few minutes to finish the last steps of our sauce, so we wanted the pasta to be cooked before continuing. When it was tender but al dente, we drained the
pasta. I took the precaution of saving a cup or so of the starchy pasta cooking water, which would work as a silky binder when we put the final dish together.
I uncovered the dutch oven and turned up the heat. I stirred until the mixture was hot, then added the white wine and cooked it for a
couple of minutes to flash off the alcohol, but not the flavor. I added the orecchiette, tossing well with the sausages, onions and peppers. Then, I added half a cup of the reserved pasta water. Finally, I added most of the parmesan, turned down the heat, and tossed to combine.
At this point, I felt my sauce was still a bit dry, so I added the remaining half cup of the cooking liquid and stirred to incorporate. As soon as the pasta was coated with a creamy clingy sauce, I turned off the heat, sprinkled on the rest of the parmesan cheese and the chopped fresh basil, and served up the pasta in bowls. Delicious.
The beauty of cooking from the pantry is that you can infinitely vary the ingredients. For example, instead of sausages and red peppers, I might have used canned tuna and jarred capers with a squeeze of fresh lemon and some olive oil. Or how about a jar of artichoke hearts, chopped up and tossed with some olives and leftover croutons? Cans of black beans, sweet corn and green chile are a never-fail selection, especially sprinkled with some lime juice and chopped scallions. Why not sauté half a pound of mushrooms, and open that jar of Alfredo sauce? It is sure to be a great combination.
And you don’t have to stick with orecchiette. Any pasta you have on hand will do the trick. The point is that whatever you decide to add to your pot, you can feel confident that it will turn out great.
I hope you’ll give my recipe for orecchiette with chicken-apple sausages a try, but even more importantly, go ahead and use up some of the back-up ingredients in your pantry, fridge and freezer. Think of it as “spring cleaning.”
Enjoy!