Gold Medal Pasta

On Sunday evening I watched, along with my husband, the gold medal game in men's ice hockey from Vancouver; he has written about it here (just in case you missed it, or wanted to read, if I may say so, some damn fine reportage), and I made a pasta last night that I thought would fit the glorious night.

Gold Medal Pasta

The ingredients, as such: spiral pasta (I used trottole, but anything tightly spiraled will do), sausages with a main extra ingredient of apples, a store-bought but good bolognese sauce (sans meat), double cream and chili and parsley.

While you boil the water, squeeze the meat out of the sausages into rough meatballs - they shouldn't be that big and you should have enough to pretty much cover the bottom of your frying pan. Once they are on their way to being golden, add the sauce and let it simmer; add the chili next, chopped up fine. Then add the double cream - cautiously, as you don't want it too rich; just enough to make it change color is enough. Let all of this 'marry' as chefs say, and make the pasta. Once the pasta is done, shake it roughly (remember to keep some water on it; dry pasta is never the ideal, certainly isn't here) and add it to the sauce, mixing thoroughly. Add parsley next however you like, in full or chopped leaf, and mix again and serve immediately.

The impact of all the ingredients here is much bigger than you would expect. The apple is key; you would think that it would clash with the rich tomato sauce (which is Loyd Grossman's by the way), but it doesn't. Tomatoes are, after all, fruit, and the apple is spiky and brave enough to be noticed, without overshadowing the tomato in question. This recipe doesn't need any extra cheese or pepper; just some nice ginger ale to go with it and salad on the side. Bon Appetit!