Our Seghesio Spicy* Sunday Sauce with Bucatini is the perfect pairing to our Sonoma Zinfandel and your restful family dinner. (*if you prefer a non-spicy Sunday sauce, sub in sweet Italian sausage and skip the red pepper flakes)
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 6 whole, raw, spicy Italian pork sausages (approx. 1.75 pounds)
• 8 cloves garlic, sliced thin
• 2 medium white onions, diced
• 4 carrots, peeled and diced
• 3 ribs celery, diced
• 2 dry bay leaves
• sea salt
• 1 cup Seghesio Sonoma Zinfandel, divided
• two 28-ounce cans Crushed tomatoes
• 1 tablespoon tomato paste
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 1.5 cups tap water
• ½ cup grated parmesan + more for serving
• (optional: parmesan rind)
• Freshly ground black pepper
• Bucatini, or pasta of choice
• For serving: salt, pepper and red pepper flakes if you like it really spicy!
Place a 5.5 quart Le Creuset Dutch oven on your stovetop over medium high heat. When the pan is hot, but not smoking, add olive oil and sausages. Brown the sausages. Remove browned sausage from the pan and set aside. Slice sausages (when cool enough to handle) into ½ inch thick rounds.
Keep Dutch oven on the stove top without wiping clean. Adjust heat on stovetop to medium.
Quickly add garlic to the already-warm Dutch oven and allow it to cook and mingle with the remnants of the sausage juices. After 30 seconds when the garlic becomes aromatic, add onion, carrots, celery and bay leaves to the pan, along with a generous pinch of salt. Stir and turn heat to medium-low. Let the veggies cook until tender, with the Dutch oven partially covered, about 15 minutes.
When veggies are tender, but not well done, add ½ cup of wine to the pan. Bring everything to a simmer to reduce wine by half, scraping all the yummy bits from the sides of the pot. When the wine has reduced, add crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, sugar, water, ½ cup parmesan, and the remaining ½ cup wine to the pot. Add sliced sausage back to the Dutch oven as well. (If you happen to have a leftover parmesan rind, add it to the sauce.) Stir to combine and let sauce simmer over low heat, partially covered for 2 hours until all flavors are deep and harmonious.
Near the end of cooking, taste and add additional salt and pepper as needed. (Discard parmesan rind and bay leaves before serving.)
Serve with pasta, red pepper flakes, chopped parsley and a generous topping of shaved parmesan.