Jan 07 2016
I search the food sites and blogs all the time for new recipes to try. I am glad I came across this one. I watched a short video of Italian sausages being cooked with grapes. It sounded good but I didn’t book mark the site so I searched and found one by Ina Garten on food network. It looked good to me.
I had some fresh Italian sausage from my butcher; no preservatives added just pork and seasoning. My wife got some seedless red grapes for me. In her recipe she par boiled the sausage for 8 minutes. I wanted to smoke mine for an hour instead of boiling. I also reduced her recipe by about half. I had 4 sausages, 1.25 pounds, and used a pound of grapes.
I had the sausages smoking on my Traeger and about 15 minutes before they were done I added 3 TBS. of butter to a skillet on med. high, the grapes, 2 TBS of red wine and 2 TBS. of balsamic vinegar. Ina didn’t add the vinegar until after it came out of the oven; I added mine with the wine. I reduced the sauce some and then added the sausages. They went into a 475 deg. oven for 20 minutes, turning half way. The recipe said 500 deg. and to me that is too hot. Mine did well at 475 deg. and 450 may even be good.
I took the skillet out of the oven and on the stovetop at med. heat to reduce the sauce more while I cooked my pasta. I had fettuccini that I added 4 pats of butter and 1/3 cup of fine ground parmesan to.
I had baked some beer bread, 3 cups of self-rising flour, 3 TBS of sugar and one can of lager beer to. It baked at 375 deg. for 50 minutes. The wife daughter and me all had a mixed Romaine salad with it. I had some marinated artichoke hearts, blue cheese dressing and croutons in mine.
We all loved this meal and it is a keeper. The red grapes and sauce really compliment the sausage.
Link to Ina's recipe
http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/roasted-sausages-and-grapes-recipe.html
An hour of smoke
Smokin Don
