Sausage with Red Wine and Porcini Mushrooms
There are many forms of comfort food and it’s a fine challenge to make the most of limited ingredients to produce food that is not only comforting but delicious. This recipe is not a dish you might eat frequently, but it is an example of how simple ingredients cooked properly can produce elegant results.
Ingredients
- Herbie's Porcini Mushrooms · 1 package
- olive oil · 1 tablespoon
- sweet Italian sausage, cut up into 4 to 5 inch lengths · 1 1/2 pound
- red wine (Merlot, Cab or Shiraz) · 1/2 cup
Instructions
Soak the mushrooms at least 30 minutes in advance in a bowl with 2 cups of warm water, then rinse them and, using a coffee filter, preserving the filtered water from the soak. Do not cut up the mushrooms.
Choose a sauté pan in which the sausage will fit in a single layer. Put in the oil and sausage, and turn on the heat to medium. Brown the sausage well all over.
Add the red wine, and turn the heat down so that the wine bubbles at a gentle simmer. Turn the sausage from time to time.
When the wine has evaporated completely, add the reconstituted wild mushrooms and the filtered water from their soak.
Cook, always at a gentle simmer, turning the sausage and mushrooms occasionally, until the water has completely evaporated. At the same time, deglaze or scrape loose the cooking residues from the bottom of the pan, using a wooden spoon.
Tip the pan and draw off the part of the floating fat with a spoon or small ladle.
Serve the sausage over mashed potatoes, pasta or rice together with a Williamson Wines red wine.
