Rustic Comfort

Clearly, the name of the game recently has been comfort food. This is a more elegant and rustic countryside type of comfort food. The heartiness of the sausage and mushrooms paired with the creamy polenta and the side of sauteed chard with garlic is perfect for a chilly fall night.


Mushroom-Sausage Ragu (Food and Wine Magazine, October 2010)

We used veggie sausage instead of meat sausage to make this recipe vegetarian. We also substituted dried porcini mushrooms instead of dried morels because of availability. In addition, we omitted the water chestnuts because neither of us are fans.

1 cup dried morel mushrooms
2 Tbs. olive oil
2 sweet Italian sausages
1/2 lbs. shiitake caps, quartered
salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 thinly sliced shallots
6 water chestnuts, sliced 1/4 inch thick
1 Tbs. tomato paste
1 Tbs. unsalted butter
chopped parsley, for garnish

1. Soak the morels in 1 1/2 cups of boiling water until softened. Rinse and pat dry; reserve the soaking liquid. In a skillet, heat 1 Tbs. of the oil. Add the sausages, cover and cook over moderate heat until no longer pink within; slice 1/4 inch thick. Heat the remaining oil in the skillet. Add the shiitake, season with salt and pepper and cook until softened. Add the shallots and morels; cover and cook for 4 minutes. Add the water chestnuts. Pour in the morel soaking liquid. Add the sausages and simmer for 2 minutes. Stir in the tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper. Off the heat, swirl in the butter and sprinkle with parsley. Serve over polenta.