Angel Hair Pasta with Sausage, Shallot and Shroom

It gets a little tiring to constantly look for new and inventive ways to feed my men food that is good for them. They don't like onions, they don't like green things, they don't like seafood. Well, The Brat likes fish sticks, but that isn't really seafood, is it?

This is the pasta dish I made last night for dinner. The kid didn't touch it (he opted to nuke some Banquet frozen chicken), but Daniele had seconds.

Note regarding Parmagiano-Reggiano:
Many chefs specify Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese in their recipes. They claim that nothing else can come close to its nutty flavor. I'm not so sure about that. Call me a philistine but I've had the real P-R and I don't see that the taste really warrants the $35 per pound price tag -- not when there are many acceptable  alternatives that are far cheaper. My local Safeway has begun to carry a domestic parmesan cheese for $3.99 per pound. Since the mystyique of Parmagiano-Reggiano is essentially a marketing ploy developed by the Consorzio del Formaggio Parmigiano-Reggiano, I don't feel any particular need to buy into it.

Angel Hair Pasta with Sausage, Shallot and Shroom

1 pound angel hair pasta (preferably whole wheat, but don't sweat if you can't find it)
8 ounces Italian sausage
6 shallots, peeled and sliced thinly
2 Tbs butter, divided
3 cloves minced garlic
8 ounces cremini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
1/2 c flat leaf parsley, chopped
grated Parmesan cheese
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Remove sausage from casings and brown in a cast iron frying pan. Remove from pan and add half the butter and the shallots. Season with salt and pepper. Cook over medium low heat until soft, then add the garlic and shrooms. Add the other Tbs of butter if the pan seems dry. Continue to cook until golden and carmelized.

While the shallot mixture is carmelizing, put on a pot of salted water and allow it to come to a boil. Add pasta and cook until al dente, about 5-6 minutes. Drain pasta reserving a cup or so of the water. Return pasta to the pot and stir in the sausage and shallots. Sprinkle the parsley and cheese over the top and toss to combine.

I am unsure how many servings this makes. I've had 3 so far and Daniele had 2. The Kid's friends had probably 3 more and we still have about half of it left.

My Burger Bash Entry

Okay, I'm not entirely sure what possessed me. Maybe it was the thought that as a winner I would get airfare for 2 to Miami and last winter, when we had unseasonable amounts of snow and ice, and that sounded really attractive. Oh, if I'd won I had not the slightest intention of attending the SoBe Wine and Food Festival and cooking alongside Rachael Ray. No, I would have elected to spend my weekend on the beach soaking up some melanoma.

With that thought uppermost, I actually decided to devise a burger recipe for the much-hyped Burger Bash. Not that I think the world really needs another burger. Frankly I do not believe that one really needs more than a nicely grilled patty, salt and pepper, mayo, tomato, lettuce and a bun. My favorite was those slipping apart beauties at the now-defunct Portland restaurant Yaw's. But what the hey.

I didn't think my recipe was all that bad. A little different, a little weird, but it was surprisingly okay. The rules indicated that you were limited to 10 ingredients. If I had realized that salt and pepper didn't count, it would have turned out a bit differently.

What tortured amalgam of unlikely and seemingly incompatible foods could be thrown together ala Rach? Given her penchant for odd ethnic food pairings I finally hit on it: a cassoulet burger. But how could this complex, time-consuming dish be converted into a burger?

It wasn't really that much trouble. I googled many recipes and saw that the primary flavors were sausage and garlic. The Alsatian Cassoulet recipe I used as a starting point featured cabbage, apples, shallots and beer. In view of the 10 ingredient rule, including garnish, the most challenging aspect was to capture the essential flavors without going over the allowed number of ingredients.

I ended up with what I called the Aslatian Cassoulet Burger. Despite my best efforts to create something that looked as if it had been pulled straight out of the culinarily-warped mind of Rachael Ray the recipe wasn't half bad. Tasty, even. It included a patty made from turkey sausage and a topping made of shallots, sliced tart apple, vinegar and canned white beans.

The day for notification of winninghood came and went without me hearing that the judging panel adored my recipe and couldn't wait for me to go cook it alongside Rach. Can't really say that I was either surprised or disappointed, as I couldn't quite picture myself performing the requisite tongue-biting and brown-nosing that would be necessary in order to follow through with the ordeal.

However, many an eyebrow was raised around here when a very similar recipe  turned up on one of RR's sites. I couldn't exactly say that she ripped me off, especially since she left out poor old Granny Smith, but one is nonetheless left with an impression that this "contest," if not fixed, was promoted mainly to provide RR with ideas, of which a dearth burgeons daily. Harumpf!

At any rate, since Roachie-poo won't be featuring my recipe in her eponymous rag and I have not released copyright to it, here it is! Of course, it isn't exactly swimming in oil and cheese like your standard Rachipe, but it is different, creatively used the allowed number of items, was filling, high protein and low fat. Oh, no wonder it didn't win.

Alsatian Cassoulet Burgers
 
1 ½ lbs turkey sausage
2 garlic cloves, minced
2 large shallots, thinly sliced
1 large tart apple such as Granny Smith or Gravenstein, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
3 Tbs vegetable oil
1 ½ c beef stock, dry white wine or beer
1 15 oz can of navy or Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed
¼ c cider vinegar
4 crushed wheat hamburger buns, toasted

Combine sausage and garlic and shape into 4 equal patties. Refrigerate until ready to cook. 

Heat vegetable oil in a medium sized skillet. When hot, add onions and apples. Sauté a few minutes and reduce heat to low. Cook, stirring occasionally, until golden brown, approximately 10 minutes. Raise heat to medium high, then deglaze the pan with the stock, wine or beer. Bring to a boil and add beans and cider vinegar. Lower heat to medium and cook until liquid is nearly all gone, about another 10 minutes. 

While the apple mixture is reducing, fry sausage patties in a cast iron pan. Cook until juices run clear, 5-6 minutes per side. Remove from pan and drain on paper towels, if necessary. Place on bottom half of bun. Top with apple mixture and bun top.