father's day gift — Recipes & Ramblings

This year for Father's Day we had a BBQ at my parent's house that my in-laws came to, which was of course very convenient, but also really nice to have both Dads together. My father-in-law Al had recently told my Mom about a recipe for Sausage and Grapes that he saw, kind of hinting to her that he would like it the next time they have them over, which my husband and I thought was awesome. Yes, my Mom is an excellent cook. When I invited Al to the BBQ and asked if he had any requests, he mentioned the Sausage and Grapes again, so now I knew Al was not making idle chitchat, he wants sausage and grapes, and he wants it now. Since I like to give thoughtful gifts, I decided I would make Al his own aluminum platter of mashed potatoes and Sausage and Grapes so he can take it home and eat it at his leisure for at least two meals AND it gets my Mother-in-Law out of cooking for two nights! Everyone wins.

So, now the pressure was on, the Saturday before Father's Day, while I was prepping a bunch of food for the BBQ, it was time to make a dish I have never tried. I did what I always do: researched and read a bunch of recipes pertaining to sausage and grapes, read some pan-fried sausage recipes by Marcella Hazan, combined some thoughts and decided on my ingredients and how I was going to cook it up. I jotted down ingredients, amounts and what I did as I did it, and I liked the outcome of the dish, so now I present to you, my adapted recipe for Sausage and Grapes.

Ingredients:

1 Tbs olive oil
1 Tbs butter (or butter substitute like Earth Balance)
1 sliced large yellow onion
8 pork sausages (you can substitute chicken or turkey)
2 cups red seedless grapes
1 cup red wine (chianti or cabernet is best)
2 cups sliced shitaki mushrooms
chopped parsley for garnish
1 tsp dry thyme
salt and pepper to taste

To Make:

First you want to heat a large, walled saute` pan on medium heat with the olive oil and butter. Once it is melted and the butter is bubbling up a little, add your onions and saute` until they become translucent. If the onions start to brown, lower your heat to a medium-low. A yellow/light brown tone is fine, but you want to avoid them charring, this will add bitterness to the dish, the object is to cook them low and slow and make them translucent. Once you have reached this point 8 minutes give or take, add the shitakis and cook them all down until the shitakis take on a little color and have become limp. This will take about 7-10 minutes. Remove the onion and mushroom mix and place on a plate.

Add the sausages to the pan and brown them on each side. Add a little bit of oil to the pan and make sure the sausages aren't touching each other. This will ensure that the sausage will brown. If you have to work in batches, do so. Remove from pan once they are all browned.

Pour the wine into the pan, and with your wooden spoon, scrape up any browned bits on the bottom or sides of your pan and let the wine begin to simmer and add your grapes, the mushroom and onion mixture, the thyme and salt and pepper. Allow this all to cook together on medium-high heat and after a few minutes, when it won't taste like raw wine anymore, give it a taste and adjust the seasoning. Note that, as you cook this down more so the sauce thickens, the flavors become concentrated so it will become saltier but also sweeter because of the grapes and wine. If you feel that is happening and your sauce is still a watery consistency, make a slurry with a teaspoon of corn starch and a teaspoon of warm water. Stir this into the sauce and it will quicken the thickening process. After a couple more minutes, arrange the sausages onto the pan and let them heat through, about 5 minutes. If your pan is oven save, you can put in in the oven for 5 minutes on at 400 degrees. Remove from heat and top with parsley garnish.

At this point, it is ready to be served! This dish would go best topping some creamy polenta, buttery egg noodles, or over some mashed potatoes. If I were serving it immediately, I would opt for polenta. Since I was making it to be reheated, I opted for the mashed potatoes only because they reheat better than polenta would.

The day after Father's Day, I received a phone call from my Father-in-Law thanking me for the gift and letting me know that it was delicious. Cooking this dish for him was a fun way of letting him know how much he means to Darin and I, and it was a gift I KNEW he would get use out of! When my husband came into the kitchen while I was assembling the aluminum container he said, "He's getting all of that?" so I think I will have to make it again soon, because full disclosure: I was kind of jealous too ;)