Sep 23 2008
Posh Peasant Food
My Italian guru, Ariana, assures me that whilst polenta is quite trendy in the UK, it is somewhat looked down on in Italy as mere peasant food.
- Italian Sausages in Hot Tomato Sauce with Polenta
However our meal could not be classed as Peasants’ Fare, as we used very fine Valvona and Crolla peasano (damn!) sausages, taking it back into foodie realm. It simply wouldn’t have been right with any other sausage.
What makes this dish express is that, rather than slaving over a hot stove making a rich chilli-hot tomato sauce, you simply brown your sausages, add some marsala, and then throw in a jar of posh tomato sauce for pasta. I know, twice in one week, what is happening to me? This recipe called for seriously high end pasta sauce and I had wanted to use the organic Seeds of Change range but ended up shopping for this at closing time on Sunday night in our local Scotmid. It’s a huge shop but man do they have uninspired stock.
So we ended up with Lloyd Grossman Tomato and Chilli Sauce- I was particularly impressed when I bought it that the ingredients list read much as it would were you constructing such a sauce in your own kitchen. And do you know, I was actually really impressed. After a 20 min cook with the sausages in it, it really did taste as if I’d chopped garlic and chilli and made the sauce myself (admitedly opening a tin of tomatoes isn’t laborious). It was probably a horrendous waste of money (don’t tell my Granny but I have no idea what it cost) but as an express route to a tasty meal it was just fine.
On a final note; neither of us had eaten polenta in living memory before. It was a bit odd whilst we were cooking it, trying to work out what it would be like, and we had settled on grainy mashed potato. So you can imagine we were a bit surprised when it turned out to firm up! Nevertheless we were both quite enteretained by it and would eat it again, I’d imagine.
A good cold night meal all round.
I’ve been really impressed with the Lloyd Grossman curry sauces – I didn’t even realise there was a pasta range too!
Looks great! I haven’t tried this recipe yet I’m sure I will soon.
Somehow, I can’t raise enthusiasm for polenta. Clearly I must be more posh than my offspring…. ahem
We were both fairly sceptical, but I figured I’d like it because warm carbs rarely fail to please! I fully expected Dougal to find it a bit gross though, too stodgy or whatever, so I gave him a smaller portion. I think we were both pretty pleasantly surprised.