Fancy Stuff: Wine Stained Gemelli with Eggplant and Sausage

 

How was your weekend? Ours was pretty great. We explored a whole new part of New York City - an area called "Carroll Gardens" in this borough they call "Brooklyn". Who would of thought, there's a whole, nice, enjoyable place to go outside of Manhattan?

Another nice thing was that we received word that at least two families cooked meals from our blog on Saturday night. This is not to toot our own horn, but rather to say "thanks" to those of you who read this blog and find it useful, and especially to those of you who comment and let us know what you're up to. It makes us feel really good, and makes writing this worth it!

So today we bring you a fancy pants recipe, but one that's actually very easy to do. The pasta is "stained" by cooking it in a water and wine combination - imparting the earthy semi-sweet flavor of the wine into the noodle. This is the base upon which a rich hearty sauce is built. We hope you enjoy!

Making the Dish

What You'll Need
1/2 lb gemelli
1 eggplant
2 links, sweet italian sausage
1/4 fresh italian parsley, cut
750 ml, cheap red wine
1.5 cups, tomato sauce
1 tsp olive oil

Cubed eggplant

1. Get started by slicing your eggplant into cubes. Remove the sausage from the casing, and roll it up into small mini meatballs. Add a touch of olive oil to a non stick pan and cook the sausage meatballs on high heat, browning on all sides. Once browned, remove from heat and set on a paper towel.

Mini sausage balls

2. Cook up the eggplant. In the same pan, toss the eggplant over medium heat, cooking until the eggplant is slightly caramelized. Once somewhat browned, add in a half cup of red wine, toss with the eggplant, and bring to a boil. Cook until reduced by half.

Searing the sausage

Cooking the eggplant

Adding the wine and cooking til reduced

3. Once the wine is reduced, return the browned sausage meatballs to the pan. Add in the tomato sauce, stir to combine, bring to a boil, and then reduce the heat, letting the sauce simmer while the noodles cook.

Adding the tomato sauce to the eggplant and sausage

4. In a medium pot, bring 2 cups water and 2 cups wine to a boil, and add a touch of salt. Once boiling, add in the pasta and cook until one minute shy of the package directions. You'll see that the gemelli takes on the color of the wine throughout the cooking process. Thus - it becomes wine stained.

Staining the pasta

The finished wine stained pasta

5. Once the pasta has finished cooking, ladle a small bit of the cooking water/wine into the sausage and eggplant sauce and stir to incorporate. Drain the rest of the past and rinse to cool. Then, add it to the sausage and eggplant sauce, and toss with the fresh parsley over medium heat until the sauce takes on the desired consistency - about 1 - 2 minutes.

Adding the wine stained pasta to the sauce

6. Serve topped with grated pecorino romano cheese, and enjoy!

The Result

This dish is a treat for both the tongue and the eyes. You'll feel like you've done something really special. The sausage and eggplant sauce is thick and hearty, with a sweet savory flavor that pairs wonderfully with the somewhat earthy flavor of the wine stained gemelli.

One year ago: Chicken Fajita Dinner