Orecchiette w/ Sweet Italian Sausage and Fresh Spinach

I love working with unusual pastas, and though I still have not broke out the pasta maker again, I strive to search the stores for unique shapes to experiment with. Orecchiette happens to be one of those pastas and it was pretty cool to work with. I didn’t think a traditional sauce would work well with this, feeling like it would ultimately clump together, so I decided to use the simple method of natural oils and fats from the sausage and olive oil. The recipe ended up being super simple, amazingly fast and had a good light flavor profile to it. So here it is, Orecchiette with sweet Italian sausage and fresh spinach. Bon Appetito


2 c Orecchiette
½ lb sweet Italian sausage
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
2 c sliced button mushrooms
1 tbs sweet cream butter
Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper pepper
5 oz fresh spinach
½ tsp crushed red pepper
Kosher salt and fresh cracked pepper
Fresh grated Parmigiano-Reggiano

Start by boiling water in a medium sized pasta pot. Add your Orecchiette. This should be cooked to aldenté. While that is cooking, break up the sausage in a sauté pan over medium heat. Cook until browned. Use a slotted spoon to set aside in a separate bowl. Add the oil, mushrooms, butter, salt and pepper. Raise the flame to a medium high to get a bit of brown sear on the edges and cook til they are somewhat firm. Remove from pan with a slotted spoon and add to sausage bowl. You should have a bit of juice and oils from the previous ingredients so that’s what you’re going to cook your spinach in. Lower the heat back to medium and add your spinach,  crushed red pepper, salt and fresh cracked pepper. Sautee the spinach until completely coated and wilted. Add your aldenté pasta, sausage and shrooms to the pan. Give it a few nice tosses, heating everything back up and plate. Grate some fresh parmesan to the plated pasta dishes and there you go. Super simple and fast.