Guess who’s in the kitchen? The boyfriend! I love when he cooks for me… this time he’s making pasta with Italian sausage and zucchini. We are lucky to be able to find zucchini quite easily here so he makes this dish very often. We normally use fresh Italian sausage from our butcher but you can use any other type you prefer. But not wurst, get fresh sausage so you can remove it from the casing and break it into small pieces. Fresh sausages are full of flavours and like this you can spread those flavours into the sauce and pasta.
Italian sausage
Sausages are widely used in Italian cuisine, both as a main ingredient and to add flavor to dishes. It’s very versatile and that’s what makes it a very popular choice in several recipes. Sausages are either grilled or served with a bean stew or cooked fennel, used to top pizza, stirred into pasta or served simply with a creamy polenta. There are many different regional dishes which use sausage; from Gramigna in Bologna, a special kind of pasta served with sausages and cream, to Tastasa, a rice and sausage dish popular in Verona.
Italian sausages are typically made from pork and seasoned with fennel and spices. It’s thought that they were first made in the ancient district of Lucania, southern Italy. It is believed these sausages were introduced to Ancient Rome by Lucan slaves or troops. The Ancient Romans loved their exquisite flavour and how easy it was to transport and store them.
We use sausages a lot in our house: always present on our BBQs, in several pasta dishes, in stews, roasts, you name it. And this pasta with Italian sausage and zucchini is a good example of what happens in our kitchen 🙂
Ingredients
Instructions