Smoky Roasted Pepper & Vegan Sausage Ragu 煙燻味烤甜椒香腸肉醬
This is a recipe I use very often and it’s adapted from Pasta with Smoky Roasted Pepper Sauce & Vegetarian Sausages by Meryl Feinstein on food52. A lovely flavour combination of smokiness and sweetness.
The supermarket nearby doesn’t stock the kind of hot Italian sausages the original recipe used, so I’ve since made this with a few different kinds of sausages/sausage meat and ended up settling on a plain vegan sausage. To compensate and for extra flavours I use cayenne pepper and my favourite hot smoked paprika powder from the brand La Chinata. There are two kinds - one sweet, one hot - and they both have this amazing smoky smell that a lot of the average smoked paprika lack.
In this recipe the sausage is broken into tiny pieces, so even if you are not a fan of the texture of vegan sausage you are very unlikely to notice that they are vegan sausage. In fact the first time I cooked this with vegan sausage (having done the recipe before with normal sausage) no one knew they were eating vegan sausage, and after I told them everyone was impressed with how similar the texture was to real sausage meat. So do give vegan sausage a try!
And here is the recipe…
Ingredients
serves 4
500 g pasta of choice (shorter pasta works better)
2 bell pepper
1/2 onion, half rings
4 garlic cloves, minced
around 300 g vegan sausage (mine is 336 g)
2 tsp hot smoked paprika powder
1 tsp cayenne pepper powder
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp vegetable stock powder
1 cup white wine
1 cup reserved pasta water
1/3 cup cream
salt
black pepper
grated Parmigiano Reggiano, to serve
Method
Set oven grill at 220°C. Halve the peppers, remove the seeds and stems, then place cut-side down on a foil-lined tray. Grill at 220°C for 30 mins.
Peppers are done when the skins are completely blacken. Remove from oven, then wrap peppers with foil to let then steam for 10 mins (this is an important step to make the skins easy to remove). Once the skins are peeled, blend peppers with half of the white wine.
Chop onion into half rings and mince garlic. Squeeze sausage meat out of the case (if using real sausage), or mash vegan sausages up into mince with a fork. Season sausage meat with smoked paprika and cayenne pepper.
Cook onion and garlic with olive oil in a pan on medium heat until onion is soften, then take them out and put them aside.
Using the same pan with more olive oil, cook sausage meat on medium heat. Break the sausage meat up into little pieces and cook to desired texture. With vegan sausage there are a lot of different textures you can achieve, from soft creamy bits to caramelised crumbs.
Boil water in another pot for pasta. Once pasta is cooked, reserve 1 cup of pasta water.
Add garlic, onion and tomato paste to sausage meat, mix well. Then add blended peppers, pasta water, vegetable stock powder and remaining white wine. Season with salt and black pepper as you taste. Mix in pasta and cream in the end.
Serve with grated Parmigiano Reggiano on top.
這是我很常做的一道義大利麵，是根據這個煙燻味烤甜椒香腸肉醬的食譜做的。烤過的甜椒非常甜，去掉烤黑的皮仍有淡淡煙燻味，是一般市售義大利麵醬無法複製的口味。
我家附近的超市沒有賣原食譜中所用的義大利辣香腸，我試了幾種不同的香腸和香腸絞肉（沒有腸衣的香腸肉），最後結論是直接用素香腸再自己調味最合適。對我來說這道最重要的調味料是La Chinata的煙燻紅椒粉（台灣也買得到喔！），這個牌子的煙燻紅椒粉有辣味和甜味（其實就是不辣），兩種都有濃郁的煙燻味，不像很多普通的煙燻紅椒粉根本聞不出來也吃不出來有煙燻過。
這個食譜裡的香腸是有壓碎成小小塊的香腸絞肉，所以就算你不喜歡一般的素香腸口感，也應該會喜歡小小塊素香腸絞肉的口感。我第一次用素香腸做這道義大利麵時完全沒有人吃得出來我用的是素香腸（前幾次都是用真的香腸做），每個人都覺得素香腸絞肉的口感實在和真的香腸絞肉太像了。請務必試試。
食譜
材料
4人份
500 公克 你喜歡的義大利麵（短的義大利麵最適合）
2 顆 甜椒
1/2 顆 洋蔥，切成半月型條狀
4 瓣 大蒜，切碎
約300 公克 香腸絞肉（我用的一盒是336公克）
2 茶匙 煙燻紅椒粉
1 茶匙 卡宴（cayenne）辣椒粉
1 湯匙 蕃茄糊
2 茶匙 蔬菜高湯粉
1 杯 白酒
1 杯 煮完義大利麵的義大利麵水
1/3 杯 鮮奶油
鹽
黑胡椒
帕瑪森起司
做法
烤箱設定單上火攝氏220度。甜椒切半，去籽去芯，切面朝下放在鋪有錫箔紙的烤盤上。單上火烤30分鐘。
甜椒的皮要烤到全黑，從烤箱取出後用錫箔紙將甜椒包起來悶十分鐘（這個步驟很重要，能讓剝皮變得非常輕鬆）。剝掉甜椒烤黑的皮後，與一半的白酒以手持攪拌棒打成糊。
洋蔥切成半月型條狀（切半後切條狀），大蒜切碎。如果用的是一般香腸，要將香腸絞肉擠出腸衣；若用素香腸，則直接用叉子將香腸壓碎成絞肉即可。香腸絞肉以煙燻紅椒粉和卡宴胡椒粉調味。
中火熱鍋，橄欖油炒洋蔥和大蒜，炒到洋蔥軟化變半透明，將洋蔥和大蒜移至一旁備用。
用同一個鍋子，中火橄欖油炒香腸絞肉，用鍋鏟將香腸絞肉鏟成小小塊，炒到你喜歡的口感。依照炒的火侯和時間長短，素香腸絞肉可以有很多不同的口感，從綿密到焦香，變化很多。
另一個鍋子加水煮沸，煮義大利麵。義大利麵煮熟後保留一杯煮義大利麵的水。
將大蒜、洋蔥和蕃茄糊加入香腸絞肉中，翻炒均勻，再加入甜椒糊、義大利麵水、蔬菜高湯粉和剩下一半的白酒。以鹽和黑胡椒調味，最後再拌入義大利麵和鮮奶油。
撒上帕瑪森起司食用。
