Cowboy Pasta
This is a freezer version of cowboy pasta that I made for a friend.
I read an Italian cookbook that had a recipe for Cowboy Pasta, which I vaguely remembered, but couldn’t be bothered to open the book since I knew I didn’t have all the ingredients anyway. So I made this with what I had. I was a cowboy in the kitchen, so it is cowboy pasta too.
It is really delicious, so here it is for you to make or ignore completely while you make something that vaguely resembles this recipe.
Ingredients
3 tbsp olive oil
1lb Mexican chorizo sausage (raw sausage meat, not cured sausage which is Spanish chorizo)
1 onion, diced
3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 tbsp fennel seeds
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 can of tomatoes
Salt
Pepper
200g low moisture mozzarella cheese, coarsely grated
500g dried pasta, such as penne
Notes:
Mexican chorizo is uncooked sausage meat, like Italian sausages. Do not use Spanish chorizo, which is cured sausage, like pepperoni.
I found frozen Mexican chorizo at the local Latin supermarket (America Latina if you are local). If you can’t find Mexican chorizo, you could use hot Italian sausage.
Method
Heat a large, high sided skillet on medium-high heat.
Add the olive oil and heat until shimmering.
Remove the chorizo from the casing and crumble the sausage meat into the pan. Leave to cook for 3 minutes, until crispy and brown on one side. Break up the sausage meat with a potato masher.
Add the chopped onion and garlic, a pinch of salt, and cook for 5–10 minutes, until softened.
Add the tomato paste and cook for 3 minutes, stirring often.
Add the fennel seeds and freshly ground black pepper. Stir to combine.
Add the can of tomatoes, crushing the tomatoes as you add them.
Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and cook at a simmer for 20 minutes. Taste and adjust seasoning.
While simmering, cook your pasta in a large pot of heavily salted water to 1-minute less than the cook time on the box. Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water in a mug.
Transfer the pasta to the sauce using a spider strainer. Add in half the cheese. Stir to combine. If the sauce looks very thick, add the pasta water and stir to loosen it up.
If serving immediately, top with additional mozzarella.
If freezer, transfer to containers and top with mozzarella. Bake at 350°F from frozen until bubbling in the centre and the cheese on top is browned.