Penne pasta with Savoy cabbage and semi-dried hot sausages

Ingredients for 4 people: 

400g penne rigate pasta, 6 semi-dried hot sausages, 1 medium-sized Savoy cabbage, 1 red garlic clove, extra-virgin olive oil and salt as needed.

Directions :

Clean the cabbage, cut the leaves into strips and stew in a pan for 30 minutes with two tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil, a little salt and the whole garlic clove making sure it does not totally dry out.

Remove the skin from the sausages and cut them into slices. Fry the slices in a large pan with a tablespoon of extra-virgin olive oil, breaking up the ground meat with a fork. Keep a few tablespoons of the crumbled sausage aside and add in the stewed cabbage without the garlic clove and cook together for around 10 minutes.

Boil the pasta in ample sated water, drain when it is half-cooked, not yet ‘al dente’, and finish cooking it in the pan with the cabbage and sausage, adding a ladle of the water used to boil the pasta.

Serve on plates spreading the crumbled sausage that was kept aside on top.

Wine to pair: 

Barbera d’Alba Fides Pio Cesare 

 

“Fides”, faith in Latin, represents the great long time faith of Pio Family in the Barbera grapes planted and grown in the area of Barolo. The grapes are planted in the family owned Colombaro vineyard in Serralunga d’Alba, one of the most exclusive terroir of the entire Barolo area, where they could easily obtain a great Barolo instead.

Fides has full body, structure, concentration, ripe fruit, spicy. Balanced and long life. Very small quantity produced just in top vintages.

Production area: Serralunga d'Alba (CN), Colombaro vineyard.

Grape variety: Barbera 100%

Wine making: vinification in stainless steel tanks. Skin contact maceration for 25 days. Immediately after the racking, ageing for 18 months in barrels and in small part in barrique.