After a few days of client meetings, complete with hurried lunches over piles of documents and one too many conference room cookies, I wanted nothing more than to eat a home-cooked meal at my leisure over a glass of wine. Sometimes, enough is enough!
As I walked toward the subway, the damp early spring chill inspired me. A chunky pan tomato sauce with sausage, served over … polenta! And a pile of greens on the side. Warming, satisfying comfort food.
By a great stroke of luck, I pass by Grand Central Market on my way to the subway, a small market with a variety of food counters. Not the most frugal of grocery shopping, to be sure, but the quality’s better than most NYC supermarkets. First stop was Ceriello, where I picked up two broccoli rabe and fresh mozzarella sausage, the main attraction in my sauce. Next was Murray’s Cheese, where I picked up a wedge of pecorino romano and (inspired by Bob) some fresh mozzarella balls. On my way out the door, I grabbed a green pepper, some parsley and a bunch of broccolini from the vegetable stand.
Once I got home, this meal took about 40 minutes to put together, from the time I uncorked my bottle of red to the time I sat down to eat. The strong flavors in the sausage gave the otherwise simple tomato sauce some serious oomph, so be sure to choose a sausage you like! The polenta absorbed the flavors of the sauce quickly and was surprisingly filling. I liked the mozzarella balls in the the sauce, but it would have worked well without, too.
I served my polenta with a pile of broccolini sauteed in a bit of olive oil and garlic. Spinach, broccoli rabe or even broccoli would have been excellent, too. And while I’m sure that the meal probably would have been better with real polenta, the instant variety was perfectly acceptable, especially when served with a hearty sauce.
Polenta with sausage tomato sauce
Ingredients:
Directions:
Polenta is one of those foods I’ve never cooked myself. I’ve been meaning to forever after having a couple of delicious polenta experiences, but I’ve also had a few seriously inferior polenta experiences which probably delayed my desire to proceed.
Still, this recipe sounds soooo good. I may have trouble finding sausages as delectable as those that you used without trekking into NYC (which is not bloody likely). That makes me a wee bit sad, but I’ll go ahead and try it with sweet Italian sausage (which my family prefers to hot sausage).
Which reminds me, as I learn how other parts of the country use different culinary terms…. The last time I was in California (Bay Area), I asked for sweet sausage at a meat shop and they had no idea what I was talking about. They had sausage and hot sausage, but it took a couple minutes of confused conversation for us to sort that out. “Sausage” in Northern California = “Sweet Sausage” in North Jersey