Gramigna with sausage is a very tasty first course, prepared with few and simple ingredients. It is a typical dish of Bologna, which I always ate when we were there for a race. Like all traditional dishes, there are different variations: some add tomato to the dressing, and some, like in my case, only cream. Some deglaze with wine and some do not, some melt grated Parmesan directly into the cream and some add it at the end, directly on the pasta.
This recipe uses gramigna, which is a short pasta, typical of Emilia Romagna, that appears like a curved tube. It is available both as egg pasta and as dry pasta, also in the paglia e fieno version, i.e., yellow and green, where the green pasta is obtained by adding spinach to the dough.
If you like dishes from the Emilian cuisine, try also these recipes of mine:
- Difficulty: Easy
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 4 people
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 14 oz gramigna
- 1 onion
- 14 oz sausage
- 4 tbsps vegetable oil
- 3.5 oz white wine
- 1.5 cups heavy cream
- to taste pepper
- to taste salt
- to taste thyme (optional)
- to taste grated Parmesan cheese (optional)
Steps
To prepare gramigna, bring plenty of water to a boil in a large pot, salt it, and toss in the pasta.
In the meantime, finely chop the onion. Heat a large skillet with the vegetable oil and sauté the onion gently for a few minutes, until it softens but does not color. Meanwhile, peel the sausages and crumble them by hand or coarsely chop them with a knife. Add the crumbled sausages to the onion and sauté everything over high heat until the sausage is well browned. Deglaze with the white wine and let it evaporate.
Finally, pour in the cream, bring to a boil, and lower the heat. Let it cook over low heat without a lid for about 10 more minutes so the cream thickens a bit.
Drain the gramigna al dente, reserving some cooking water. Place the gramigna directly in the skillet with the cream and sausage sauce and mix. Add some cooking water to better combine everything and plate. If you like, you can add some fresh thyme leaves. Serve your gramigna with sausage immediately, possibly with a sprinkle of Parmesan for those who like it.
