Squid and Sausage Fusilli
Seafood and sausage is always a tasty pairing. After playing around with squid cooking times and noticing that it can be tender after 3 minutes or 40 minutes, but nowhere in between, I really wanted to make a hearty tomato sauce with chopped up squid that was cooked slow and low. I decided to mix in sausage, but otherwise make it like a normal tomato sauce. I loved how this came out. The squid had a perfect texture that was super tender with just a slight rubbery bite that gave the whole dish a nice chew. The flavor combo of tomato sausage and squid with a little banana pepper thrown in is really something special and some chopped up hazelnut and meyer lemon zest on top brought everything together in a nice way.
The two stars of the dish. Chop your squid up nice and small.
Sear it off, then remove it from the pan and cook the onions.
Everything back in the pan including a large can of tomatoes. The banana peppers don’t go in until after this simmers for like 45 minutes.
Making the topping.
Chop everything together into a nice loose pesto.
This pasta is fantastic.
Totally unique and different, but comforting and familiar at the same time.
The lemon/basil/hazelnut combo really makes the dish.
Squid and Sausage Fusilli
Ingredients
- 1 Medium Onion
- 1/2 Pound Cleaned Squid
- 1/2 Pound Hot Italian Sausage
- 2 Cloves Garlic
- 2 Tablespoons Crushed Red Pepper
- 28 Ounces Canned Crushed Tomato
- 1 Tablespoon Fish Sauce
- 1/4 Cup Chopped Banana Peppers with Juices
- 20 Basil Leaves or so
- 15 Roasted Hazelnuts
- 1 Meyer Lemon
- 1 Pound Whole Wheat Fusilli
Instructions
- Prep all your ingredients. Chop the basil and banana peppers, dice the onion, mince the garlic, remove the sausage from the casings and dice the squid into very small pieces. In a hot pan, sear the squid and sausage. Remove from the pan. Cook the onion in the sausage juices until just lightly browned, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook 2 minutes. Add the squid and sausage back to the pan. Add in the red pepper, fish sauce, and the tomatoes. Simmer about 45 minutes. Add 80% of the basil and all the banana peppers and cook 20 more minutes. Meanwhile cook the pasta in boiling water until al dente. Also zest the lemon peel. Chop the hazelnuts and mix them with the lemon zest and basil. Chop them all together to form almost a loose pesto. Set aside. Mix the cooked pasta with the sauce and stir to coat. Serve and top with the nut/zest mixture.