Think On It

Pasta with Chinese Meatballs?

April 9th, 2006

Leftovers can be circular. My friend Cristina of Expats in Italy often makes Chinese potstickers when she has leftover raw sausages around. I am suggestible, so I do too. I, however, find the local sausages a bit salty, so I mix in some ground lean pork, and then I have leftover potsticker filling.

A person could eat potstickers everyday, but a person could also weigh 400 pounds and resemble the pig from whom all these blessing flow. So, here’s something to do with that leftover filling.

A word on the filling. Mine consists of the meat from inside the sausages and about an equal amount of lean ground pork, a few minced scallion tops, some grated ginger, some wine vinegar, a bit of toasted sesame oil, and sometimes some crushed red chili bits. It takes about 5 minutes to put that all together.

So, to make this fusion pasta, take what you have left of that filling and make it into tiny meatballs, between 1/2 and 3/4″ — I am not accurate. Start water for pasta and bring it to a boil. When it boils, add some salt and put in about 130 - 200 grams of hard wheat pasta, not egg pasta. Here you see rotini.

Heat a frying pan that is big enough to hold everything including the pasta before you put the pasta into the water. What I am showing is enough for two servings. When the pan is hot, add a little olive oil, then the meatballs. Slide the pan back and forth to keep the meatballs round and from sticking. When they are no longer pink outside, add about 1/4 cup of heavy cream. By this time your pasta is boiling and you can dip out some water from the pot to thin the cream.

Add about 1/2 pound clean spinach leaves (or some leftover steamed spinach if that’s what you have) and continue to cook, stirring. When the pasta is done, drain it and throw it into the sauce pan, toss around a bit and then serve smoking hot. Some toasted sesame seeds would be a great garnish, but no cheese, please. I liked this a lot.

Entry Filed under: Food, Italy

8 Comments Add your own

1. Gia-Gina | April 9th, 2006 at 3:08 pm

This looks interesting. I love my sausage guy so much and love his sausages plain but I may just have to try these. They look great with the pasta and the spinach.
2. Tracie B. | April 10th, 2006 at 8:45 am

yum…salty meatballs and sweet cream :)
3. Judith in Umbria | April 10th, 2006 at 10:34 am

Hi tracie, read your blog first time this AM. The cream picks up the gingery salty meatball taste, so since you are young and thin, just pour some more on yours when it’s plated!
4. Snowpea | April 11th, 2006 at 12:25 pm

I just ate breakfast, but I think I could inhale a plate of those meatballs just now :-)
5. Judith in Umbria | April 11th, 2006 at 1:01 pm

Made of sausage=breakfast! Go for it. Should hold you over until lunch.
As I type I have cooking “Not Yo Momma’s Spareribs.” Published shortly. The smell is driving me mad.
6. traveller one | April 12th, 2006 at 7:07 am

Hi Judith!
Thanks for the book recommendation! I have a question for you: Do you know the Silver Spoons Cookbook and if so, would you recommend it? It’s available here in a local shop, and it’s supposed to be the definitive Italian cookbook, but it’s huge which makes it quite expensive, so I’d like to hear some good reviews before I buy it.
Thanks,
Kim
7. Judith in Umbria | April 12th, 2006 at 7:53 am

People seem generally pleased with it. It includes what Italians are currently cooking of foreign foods as well. At least the Italian version of them.
It would of course not be available in English here, and that’s the excitement, that it is translated for the first time.
Definitive? Hmmm, it seems more like Betty Crocker Italian style. I don’t think there is a definitive Italian cookbook, because in the kitchen as well as outside it, Italians are anarchists. Every casalinga has her version and it is the best.
8. traveller one | April 13th, 2006 at 7:03 am

Thanks for your answer Judith :)
I love the image of ‘Italians are anarchists”, esp. in the kitchen! I think if the rain ever stops I will go purchase the book- I am a cookbook addict (I admit).