Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking - Marcella Hazan [204]
4. Tip the pot and spoon off as much fat as you can. Add salt and pepper to taste, stir thoroughly, then serve at once.
Oven note If you prefer to use the oven, after the peas have been added and the contents brought to a simmer as described in Step 3 you can transfer the pot to the middle level of a preheated 350° oven. Make sure the pot handles are ovenproof. If, when the peas are done, the juices need to be reduced, do so on top of the stove.
Ahead-of-time note The dish can be cooked entirely in advance several days ahead. If the cooking juices need to be reduced, do it only after thoroughly reheating the sausages and peas.
Pork Sausages with Red Wine and Porcini Mushrooms
For 4 to 6 servings
1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
1½ pounds mild pork sausage, containing no herbs or strong spices
½ cup dry red wine
A small packet OR 1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted
The filtered water from the mushroom soak, see instructions
1. Choose a saute pan that can subsequently accommodate all the sausages without overlapping. Put in the oil and sausages, puncture the sausages in several places with a fork, turn on the heat to medium, and cook, turning the sausages, until you have browned them deeply all over.
2. Add the red wine and adjust heat to cook at a gentle simmer. Turn the sausages from time to time while allowing the wine to evaporate completely. When the wine has completely evaporated, add the reconstituted mushrooms and the filtered liquid from their soak. Cook, always at a steady, but gentle simmer, turning the sausages occasionally and using a wooden spoon to scrape loose cooking residues from the bottom and sides of the pan until the mushroom liquid has evaporated.
3. Tip the pan and spoon off all the fat you can, unless mashed potatoes or polenta accompany the sausages, in which instance remove only part of the fat. Serve at once.
Cotechino—Boiled Large Sausage with Lentils
A SPECIALTY of Emilia-Romagna, and particularly of the town of Modena, cotechino is a fresh pork sausage about 3 inches in diameter and 8 to 9 inches long. The name comes from cotica, pork rind, a major component. The rind for cotechino is taken from the snout and jowl, to which one adds some meat from the shoulder and neck, together with salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cloves, the proportions and choice of seasonings varying according to the style of the maker. When the same mixture is stuffed into a casing made from the pig’s trotter, it is called zampone. In the Veneto, a similar product is called musetto. It is made largely from the snout, or muso, and it is even softer than cotechino.
A properly cooked and skillfully made cotechino is exquisitely tender, with a succulent consistency that is almost creamy, and a sweeter taste than you might expect from any pork sausage. Butchers and delicatessens specializing in Italian food sell cotechino, but what sausage-makers outside Italy produce is leaner, drier, and saltier than the Modenese archetype, closer in style to a French saucisson. Nonetheless, when cooked and served as described below, it is a marvelously heartening dish. In Italy, it is believed that if cotechino with lentils is the first dish you eat on New Year’s Day, it will bring luck for the whole year.
For 6 servings
1 cotechino sausage
1 tablespoon chopped onion
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon chopped celery
1 cup lentils, washed in cold water and drained
Salt
Black pepper, ground fresh from the mill
1. Cooking the cotechino: Soak the sausage in abundant cold water a minimum of 4 hours, but better overnight.
2. When ready to cook, drain the cotechino, put it in a pot that