Spicy Sausage in Tomato Basil Cream

Spicy Sausage in Tomato Basil Cream has been a house favorite here for many years. Lots of our friends are familiar with it because I’ve served it to dinner guests numerous times. It’s easy to make, it doesn’t take long, and calls for ingredients I nearly always have on hand. Though simple and straightforward, this sauce is a restaurant-quality sauce, and I’ll put it up against anyone’s tomato cream sauce with sausage, anytime, anywhere. I usually serve it over pasta.

Good smoked sausage is important. Here on the Alabama coast, we are inordinately fond of Conecuh sausage, a hickory-smoked pork sausage made a little ways up I-65 in Conecuh County. They’ve been making this sausage up there for ages, and people used to stop and pick some up on the way back from Montgomery and points north. It’s spicy just the way we like it, and our grocery stores carry it now, thank heavens. Make sure to use a good spicy smoked sausage for this recipe, and, yes, a good andouille will certainly work.

Fresh tomatoes aren’t especially good in this dish, nor are sundried tomatoes. Save those for something else where their attributes can shine. Good quality diced tomatoes in a can are perfect here, though.

Pasta matters, too. Ideally, you need a noodle that can grab the sauce a bit, but not absorb the sauce too much. And I don’t personally love this dish with short fat pastas–penne, ziti, rigatoni, rotini, et. al.–but dry linguine, fettuccine, or my new favorite, bucatini, are all excellent choices. The sauce is a little too heavy for something very slender like angel hair or thin spaghetti. (Actually you can use whatever pasta you want, of course. I’m not really the noodle police, after all. It’s entirely possible to ladle Spicy Sausage in Tomato Basil Cream over spaghetti, or rice, or mashed potatoes. Or a baked potato. Even biscuits or toast. But I vote for a slightly toothy, twirlable, pasta.) A simple green salad with vinaigrette, plus some crusty bread to clean up the sauce, round out the meal perfectly.

Spicy Sausage in Tomato Basil Cream

1 T. bacon fat or butter
1 lb. Conecuh or other spicy smoked pork sausage, sliced in ½ inch rounds
4 scallions, sliced, both green and white parts
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T. flour
1 28-oz. can diced tomatoes, undrained
2 t. dried basil
¼ t. red pepper flakes
1 t. salt
½ t. pepper
½ cup heavy cream
1 lb. long noodles, cooked in salted water according to package directions
Fresh parsley and/or basil for garnish

Melt fat over medium heat, and cook the sausage until browned. Using a slotted spoon, remove the sausage from the pan and set aside. Drain fat if necessary, leaving 2 T. fat in the pan.

Add the scallions and garlic and cook for a minute. Stir in the flour and cook, still stirring, for a couple of minutes more. Add the tomatoes with their juice, the dried basil, pepper flakes, and salt and pepper. Also add the sausage back to the pan. Bring to a simmer, then turn the heat to low and cook for 30 minutes while you boil and drain the noodles.

Stir in the heavy cream, heat through. Taste for seasoning, adjusting if necessary. Serve over hot noodles. Garnish with fresh parsley or basil or both.