Molly Makes Her Insane Crispy (???) Pasta With Spicy Sausage Ragu

This is crispy orecchiette with spicy sausage and collard ragout. ["More is More"] When people ask me what the first recipe that they should cook out of More is More is, I oftentimes point them to this one because I think that this is a recipe that really embodies the spirit of More is More. It takes kind of like humble ingredients and finds a way to coax more flavor and more texture out of them and just take them like a little bit further than they otherwise would. Three things that you're gonna learn about today in this recipe. Number one, you should be crisping up your pasta. Number two, Calabrian chilies, which not everyone is familiar with, but are flavor-packed, great way to add heat and dimension to a recipe, and you can find them in most grocery stores. Number three, you may notice there's a little QR code at the bottom of this recipe on the page of the book that says Cook Along Audio, and that's because sometimes there's a better way to follow a recipe than watch it on video, and that's a part of this book that I'm gonna talk about later. Step one, do some prep per usual. So I've already done the first part, which is to remove the casings of one pound of sweet Italian sausage. So I just sliced right down, opened them up. You can also get loose leaf sausage, loose sausage? Whatever, you can get sausage that's not in the casings, and if not, just take the casings off, no big deal. A couple of other ingredients that we're gonna prep. These shallots, so I have three large shallots here that I am trimming and peeling. So I'm just slicing these crosswise into rings, and then the last thing I'm doing prep-wise is I am just stripping one bunch of collard greens from their woody stems, and I'm gonna slice them into bite-sized pieces. I like to just roll them up like so, and then come across and do one-inch, half-an-inch strips. Cut once down the middle so that they're not long and stringy, and you don't have this ribbon. So that's how you prep collard. Step two, cook the pasta. You should have a pot of boiling water. If you don't, now's a great time to get it going. This water has been seasoned already with salt, so a couple generous handfuls of salt. Come on over, and we are gonna cook this pasta in two phases. Once, until al dente in boiling water, like any great pasta recipe starts, and then we're gonna drain it, and we're gonna toss it with a little bit of oil, and then we're gonna throw it in a nonstick skillet, and that's where the real more is more magic is happening in this recipe, where we're taking an otherwise very standard ingredient, pasta. We are turning it into something much more than it normally is, which is crispy, and crunchy, and toothsome, and al dente, but crackly, and multi-textural. Garlicky, crispity, crunchity, jammy, crunchy-o-my, ee, ee, ee, ee, ee. And all it takes is a couple minutes in a skillet, and it's like, why aren't we all crisping our pasta? So here we go. I'm gonna eyeball this, because this is a one-pound box, but I'm adding half of the box. Always a good practice to give pasta a stir right when it goes in, so that it doesn't stick to the bottom of the pot, and we're gonna let that cook until al dente, so I think it'll take like nine or 10 minutes for this orecchiette, which is pretty much exactly the amount of time you need to start the ragu, so we're gonna multitask here, and I'm gonna start by browning our sausage. I'm doing some generous glugging over here, not a measured amount, just like enough oil to coat the bottom of this pot. Okay, so now that the oil's preheated, add our sausage in, and so I'm just adding it in link form here to begin with, and we're gonna let it cook kind of undisturbed to brown on the bottom. So I'm just turning them, because we got some good color, and now we'll brown them on the other side. Let's check on our orecchiette, because we'll drain it as soon as it's al dente, and then just let it hang out for a sec. Crunchy, needs more time. You wanna shoot for a perfectly al dente pasta here, because it's going to drain and hang out for a second, and then it's gonna get crisp back up. You don't wanna go overly al dente on the first cook, because we're gonna get all this crispy crunchiness on the outside, so it's sort of like, you don't need it to be heavily al dente all the way through. So I would almost err on the side of like, cook. All right, so these are looking nice and brown, so I'm gonna pull them out just for a minute here, so that we can do some other stuff in the pot, such as saute our shallots. So I'm making space, so I'll set these aside for a sec, and then we're going in with all of the shallots, and I've turned the heat down to very low here, because it's ripping hot right now. We don't wanna burn the shallots, but a couple big pinches of salt, and then we're just gonna stir these around kind of constantly, so that they get nice and jammy, and they're cooking in the sausage fat, which is great for the shallots. If you're a shallot, you're stoked right now. Always reserve your pasta water, you've heard it a million times. This is going to help create a really nice, creamy, starchy, luscious sauce, so save some of that pasta water. And then we're just draining entirely. And then really quickly here, just before we head back to the shallots, I'm gonna just toss them with a little bit of oil, so that they don't stick together right now, before we get over into the crisping moment. And then we'll set this aside. See these, how they're translucent and cooked down, they're a little more floppy? That's a jammy shallot. Next up, we're going to add our Calabrian chilies and our tomato paste, and we're gonna add them together, because they're both paste-like, and if you've ever seen a recipe that calls for browning your tomato paste, it asks you to do that, because it sort of caramelizes the tomato, and brings out some of the sweetness in the tomato, so that it's not just this raw tomato flavor. But I'm gonna combine these two, so that we're caramelizing both the chilies and the tomato paste together, and then we'll add water to deglaze the pot. So, a quarter cup of tomato paste. Every jar of Calabrian chilies is a little different, so I'm gonna start by adding two thirds of this, that's about three tablespoons, and then you can always taste it and decide if you want it spicier later on. In the meantime, you're gonna find the largest non-stick you can, this is extremely large, and start to heat that, because we're gonna fry slash crisp our orecchiette in that. So, this is what we're talking about. These are jammy, cooked down, caramelized, and it just looks yummier, TBH. Okay, so now to stop the cooking here, and to deglaze the pot, we're gonna add some of that pasta water. Grape up the bottom, and now we've got like a nice liquidy base that we can wilt our collard greens in, and they only take like four or five minutes, so we're just gonna add them in, and I'm gonna cover them while they cook. And while that's happening, we're doing the final orecchiette crisping. So, step three, crisp the orecchiette. So, now I'm gonna add a couple more glugs of olive oil, and depending on how large your skillet is, you will probably wanna cook this in two batches so that you don't overcrowd the pan, which will create steam, which will prevent browning and crisping, and the whole thing will take a lot longer. We have our oiled orecchiette. Okay, so, you hear that sizzle? That's what you're looking for. I'm doing about half of it, and we're over like medium-high heat, so if you stir them constantly, those bottom edges are not gonna make enough contact with the bottom of the pan, so you need to resist the urge. Let them chill, three or four minutes. It's not that long. Like, come on! I'm pretty happy with the fact that they're like half crisped and half still just like tender noodles, because that's gonna give me a multitude of textures when I eat. So, now I'm gonna transfer these guys, and I'm leaving behind any oil in the skillet, because we'll just use that for the next batch. So, I have a slotted spoon, and I'm gonna just transfer these as they finish right into the ragout. Go for these guys. While those are crisping, we're going to crumble this sausage into the pot, just kind of crumbling it into bite-size pieces. Someone should make, I should make, pasta chips. They're so f***ing good. In a future restaurant, I'll put hot pasta chips on the menu, because like those, and then if you just like dust them in parm, mmm! So, we're gonna add these last crispies right in. Okay, and now we just finished. So, we're gonna stir these in. The sausage is back in the pot. We're gonna start working this all together, and I'm gonna start adding parm just by the sprinkle full, until it feels like everything's nice, and coated, and saucy, and nobody's naked. But, I mean, look at that already, would ya? Yummy. So, this is a good moment to ask yourself, how spicy do I want this pasta? Do I want more Caribbean chilies, or am I good? I think I'm good here. I'm good here. I'm happy with where we are. Lastly, I'm squeezing in the juice of a lemon, and that's gonna help brighten everything up. There's a lot of oil, and sausage fat, and crispy things happening, and it's oftentimes really nice to add a little bit of lemon to just brighten your pasta sauces up. There is an optional add-on in this recipe, which I'm gonna add here, because more is more, which is for burrata, which you can choose if you wanna include. If you're more of a classic spicy ragu person, and you just wanna call it here, that is totally fine. What were our takeaways? What did we learn? Number one, you should be crisping up your pasta. I can't convince you until you taste it, because you won't be able to taste the crunch factor through the TV, but I promise you it's there, and it's extra special. Number two, Calabrian chilies, an incredible pantry ingredient that you can lean on when you want spice, but you also wanna introduce a little bit of funkiness, and some other depth of flavor. Number three, and we haven't talked about this at all yet, but I'm gonna take a moment to right now. This QR code in this book will take you to an audio cook-along experience. It's a new development that I didn't have in my first book, and I think it's potentially life-changing for those of you who are audio listeners, learners, versus visual ones, so please check it out, because it's really cool. Mm, mm, mm, mm! You think it's just gonna be your typical sausage ragu, but no, there's more.