welcome friends welcome back to the kitchen today we're going to do a baked pasta I'm
gonna do a sausage and rigatoni sort of baked up deal something I really like to make I don't
make it that often but something I really enjoy so I've got a pan here and I'm just gonna make
a really quick tomato sauce with the sausage got some olive oil in I'm gonna put in the onion and
I just want to sort of saute this onion until it starts to get a little bit translucent while
that's happening I have some of our homegrown garlic and this is spring garlic so it hasn't
quite formed a bulb here down at the bottom it's more like an onion at this point but it has that
full-on garlic flavor so I'm just gonna slice up just until I kind of get to the green part
earlier on in the spring I would have chopped up the entire thing but as we're getting into the
second third of May it starts to get a little bit bitter that's not to say you can't use it I still
may use this for something else in the kitchen probably tomorrow so I'm going to add these in
with the onions give that a bit of a stir and now I'm going to put in just a little bit of oregano
and some hot red pepper flakes and just to warm those up before I put the sausage in it's coming
along nicely now this is a piece of our homemade sausage Julie and I make it a couple times a year
and if you look back on the channel you'll see a really old video of us making it so I just want
to take the casing off because I just want the meat in the pan into the pot and I want to break
that up and fry it until it's a little bit Brown and you really want to break it up you want just
tiny little pieces of sausage in this pasta dish now you could use any kind of sausage you want I'm
using this because it's homemade and it's the one we really like and I think that should be the only
criteria use a sausage that you like and if that isn't an Italian sausage so be it you what you
want to eat so this is a fresh sausage it needs to be cooked and we've been making this one for years
in July we're going to take delivery of a dry-aged er now the dryer cabinet is made in Germany and
it's for dry aging meat it's a commercial unit for dry aging meat and I'm gonna get that and start
playing with doing dry aged meats but we're also going to do a bunch of dry cured sausage recipes
and I want to explore sausage from all over the world so if you think you'd be interested
in learning how to make those leave a comment down below letting me know what you're thinking
of and what you want to see what kind of sausage you'd like me to make because I'm really excited
to get going on this next in this is some passata which is just pretty much strained pureed tomato
and I don't know that I'm going to use the whole jar I'm probably going to start it with about
half and I like that it's in a jar with the lid because I can put it back in the fridge and keep
it for later now I'm gonna put in some tomatoes as well there we go looking good now I just want
to cook these down and get all those flavors to come together now always check your spicing it's
great to have a thing spoons at the side and then decide if you need more salt maybe a little bit
of black pepper you want to put in some more red pepper flakes a little more oregano a little more
garlic always be tasting as you're making stuff so a little bit more black pepper and some salt now
you've seen me do this before this is one of our home pickled hot peppers peppers from our garden
I like to crush one up dice one up whatever and throw it into any sauce that I'm making
two reasons it adds a lot of flavor it adds some heat but also the vinegar that it's pickled in
adds some acidity and brightens the whole dish up and I know that people are gonna say but tomatoes
are already acidic yeah it's kind of the same but it's a little bit different and I find that this
really brightens the flavor I just give it a rough chop seeds and all and take the top away and into
the pot I've got a pot of salted boiling water here and I think it's time to put the rigatoni
in now we're not going to cook the rigatoni all the way through maybe halfway maybe even a little
less than halfway you just want to start that cooking process and get some of the starch off
the outside just so that the final dish isn't too Claudia well the pasta is cooking I'm gonna slice
up this mozzarella now I wouldn't normally use a dry mozzarella like this there's absolutely
nothing wrong with this style of mozzarella I would just normally use one that is fresh that's
packed in water that you kind of you can squeeze it apart with your fingers this is this is a much
drier mozzarella pizza mozzarella a lot of people call it nothing wrong with it but when I went to
the store this past weekend this was the one that was available you know Co vid thanks kovat so I'm
gonna use it and instead of just sort of squishing it with my fingers into the bowl I'm gonna slice
it up into chunks and mix those in okay I'm gonna say the pasta is done so drain out as much as I
can and it doesn't really matter too much because I'm probably gonna add water into the pasta sauce
later anyway so we mix this together and the idea is that you kind of want to get sauce and sausage
all down inside the rigatoni next I'm going to mix in some ricotta now I hear yeah you could
use cottage cheese totally 100% go ahead and use cottage cheese if you want to I often stand at the
dairy case in the grocery store and look at the price difference between the two products ricotta
and cottage cheese and think is this really three four five times the amount of flavor because it's
three four or five times the amount of cost for ricotta to cottage cheese and for the most part
I don't know that it really is so decide for yourself which one you want to use if it's a
flavor preference go right ahead use whatever and I usually mix in half a tub first just to
kind of get it distributed and then come back and put the rest in and I will save a scoop for
myself I really like fresh cheese's so once I get this all mixed together I'm gonna start lining
the bottom of this baking dish with the pasta so put in a layer smooth it out and then some
of that mozzarella that I cubed up we just put in a layer of that at the same time nowtell II
you could shred this cheese if you wanted to shred it and if you're using the fresh one just kind of
squeeze it out between your fingers and spread it around now we put in the rest of the pasta spread
it out you don't really need to smooth it you kind of want a little piece jagged up every once in a
while and then we top it off with the last little bit of cheese last of the mozzarella and then a
little bit of parm or pecorino on top Parmesan or pecorino your choice I don't want to say that
I use them interchangeably in my kitchen because I know that will anger some people but you know I
pretty much use them interchangeably in my kitchen on days when I want a different flavor I'll just
mix it up and change them now carving is preheated and I've got a baking tray in the oven on top of
the shelf and I'm gonna cook this on top of the baking tray because it will bubble over
it rolls hello blends little friends the first scoop not pretty never is no you know no never
is here the big scoop though I really like the crunchy bits around the outside I know people I
know some people say oh that's burnt but to me that's I'd really like that yeah yeah so smells
good looks good to be hot mm-hmm pure comfort food he's good yeah I mean it's pasta tomato jeez
a little bit of our homemade sausage what you know and you know I I didn't go too heavy on any of the
herbs and spices on this so you can go anywhere you want with it but it's the kind of dish that
is easy to put together and is great tomorrow for lunch it is a good next day lunch lunch snack so
tell us what you put in your baked pasta down below thanks for stopping by see you again soon
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