Pumpkin pasta with sausage and crisp sage
Tinned pumpkin, Gruyère and a sheet pan to crisp the lot.
At a Glance
Story
Most tinned pumpkin in America is Dickinson pumpkin, which is the same species as butternut squash, so the tin is not a lesser vegetable, just one somebody else has already cooked and puréed. It is thick enough that blended with cream it coats pasta the way a cheese sauce would, with no flour to cook out first.
Ingredients
- 1 lb sweet Italian sausagecasings removed
- 1 tbsp butterfor the pan
- 12 fresh sage leaves
- 1 × 15 oz can pumpkin puréeplain pumpkin, not pie filling
- ¾ cup heavy cream
- ½ cup chicken stock
- 2 cloves garlicpeeled
- 1 ½ tsp kosher salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ½ tsp red pepper flakes
- 1 lb medium pasta shells or rigatoni
- 1 bunch kaleribs removed, chopped (a small one, about 8 oz)
- 1 cup shredded low-moisture mozzarelladivided
- 4 oz Gruyèregrated, divided (about 1 cup)
- 1 cup Parmesangrated, divided
- 1 cup whole-milk ricotta
- kosher saltfor the pasta water
Method
The proper way is to roast a butternut squash, scoop it out and purée it, which is an hour gone before you have boiled a drop of water. The cheat is a tin, and I have no shame about it. Gruyère and fried sage make up the difference, and a sheet pan gives you more crust than middle.
- Heat the oven to 425°F and butter a straight-sided half-sheet pan (12 by 17 inches) with 1 tbsp of the butter. Put a large pot of well-salted water on to boil.
- Brown the sausage in a large skillet over medium-high, breaking it up, about 8 minutes, until cooked through with crisp bits. Spoon it into a big mixing bowl and leave the fat in the pan.
- Drop the sage into that fat over medium and fry 1 to 2 minutes, until the leaves crisp and darken, then lift them out onto a plate.
- Load the blender with the pumpkin, cream, stock, garlic, salt, pepper and pepper flakes and blend until smooth.
- Boil the pasta for 4 minutes, adding the kale for the last minute. Scoop out 1 cup of the water, then drain. Tip the pasta and kale into the bowl with the sausage and add the sauce, ½ cup each of the mozzarella, Gruyère and Parmesan and ½ cup of the pasta water. Toss until loose and glossy, adding more water if it looks tight.
- Spread it over the sheet pan. Drop the ricotta over in spoonfuls, season the dollops with a pinch of salt, then scatter over the rest of the three cheeses.
- Bake 25 minutes, until the sides are spitting and the edges are deep gold. For darker tops, finish under the broiler for 2 minutes and do not walk away. Rest it 5 minutes, then crumble the fried sage over and cut it into squares.
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