PASTA WITH SAUSAGE, BASIL AND MUSTARD

From British cookbook author Nigel Slater, this pasta dish has a very interesting combination of flavors.  Perfect when you want to put something together quickly and you're also looking for a pasta dish that's really unique!

Rated one of Food & Wine's 40 best recipes in 2018.  This dish takes just about 20 minutes to put together.   Serves 4

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound penne, rigatoni or medium shells

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 ½ pounds hot Italian sausage  (I used mild)

3/4 cup dry white wine

3/4 cup heavy cream

3 Tbsp. grainy mustard

pinch of crushed red pepper

1 cup thinly sliced basil 

DIRECTIONS:
Cook the pasta in a large pot of boiling salted water until al dente; drain.

Meanwhile, heat the olive oil in a large, deep skillet.  Add the sausage meat and brown over moderately high heat, about 5 minutes.  Add the wine and simmer, scraping up the browned bits from the bottom, until reduced by half, about 5 minutes.

Add the cream, mustard and crushed red pepper and simmer for 2 minutes.  Remove the skillet from the heat, add the pasta and basil and toss to coat.  Serve immediately.



Notes:  
Since I don't like really spicy foods, I chose the mild italian sausage, and for me it had the right amount of spice.

I couldn't find fresh basil  when I was shopping for the other ingredients (and I wasn't going to run around the city to find it), so I used freeze dried and it tasted great.

We ate two servings and I froze the other two.  I found when we re-heated the frozen servings, the spices blended even further and it had even more "kick" to it the second time around.

Enjoy!