Spicy Italian Sausage with Fresh Fettuccine Puttanesca

I had to break in the new apartment the other day by cooking the shit out of some delicious Italian food. I got the chance to break in my new pasta roller, food grinder and sausage stuffer. Check the pics.

I started with a four pound Boston butt, that's pork shoulder for all you out there who aren't hip to the culinary lingo. I'm making sausage and this cut has the best meat/fat ratio for making sausage. You simply cannot have sausage without the proper meat/fat ratio, it ends up dry, tasteless and sad, like a world without sausage. I also picked up some vacuum packed pork fat, cubed it and mixed it in with the grind because I planned on skinning the shoulder and that takes away some of the fat as well.

I took the meat off the bone and froze it to make pork stock/ramen broth later. I also skinned the shoulder and froze that to make chicharron (drool) later.

Once skinned, I cubed the meat to make it fit down the shaft of the grinder easier. I also seasoned it with salt and pepper. This initial seasoning is crucial to maximize flavor in the sausage. It'll bring out its inner porkiness.

I toasted some classic Italian sausage spices (fennel, coriander) in a dry pan for a few minutes...

...and tossed 'em around...

...until they were nice and fragrant and just started to take on some color.

Then I buzzed them up in my spice grinder. Looks like someone's having fennel flavored coffee tomorrow.

I mixed the ground spices around in the cubed pork and got on to grinding.

I made a rookie mistake by putting the grinding blade on backwards! Oh well, I quickly switched it around and watched my meat get tore up.

The most important step in cooking any food is to taste it. Here's my sample patty of sausage cooking in some olive oil. It definitely needed some more fennel and salt. I also added some more garlic and paprika for color.

Even though I hadn't made fresh sausage in over a year the steps came right back to me. I loaded the casing (hog) that I got at the Italian deli onto the sausage stuffer and got ready to stuff those wieners.

Not too tight!

Look at those links!

Five. Five sausages. Five beautiful, firm, meaty sausages.

Pasta time. As you can tell by the slant of the roller, I didn't really have a place to anchor my new pasta roller so this was a bit of a chore. The pasta dough is semolina and whole wheat for the gf.

Flat pasta sheets. Look ma, no rips!

Here's my cut fettuccine noodles tossed in some semolina to keep them from sticking. Didn't really help cause they stuck anyway.

I simmered the sausage in some red wine, the reduction of which will later become the base for my sauce puttanesca.

And the rest of the mis en place for the puttanesca. Clockwise from top right. Chopped olives, tomatoes, anchovy paste and capers.

Everybody in the pool.

Here's the finished dish with sliced sausage and fresh grated parmesan.

A view from the top.

I'm a member of the clean plate club.