The most delicately flavored and comforting winter pasta dish I’ve ever made, using basic sausage meat and that wonderful prepared in advance, pre-cooked and jarred onion-carrot-celery sauce base I shared with you several months ago, with just the simple additions of some white wine at first and then chicken stock and finally heavy cream, to complete it !
As I said, the 4 different vegetable sauce bases I shared with you (see recipes here) a while ago, are quite helpful and my refrigerator is continually stocked with one or another version of these. It makes meal preparations easy and less fussy and less time-consuming, with less cleaning up too. And since the sauce base mixtures are very flavorful and oilier and saltier than usual (because they will be incorporated and eventually diluted in a finished sauce or finalized dish), it won’t be necessary to add extra salt, pepper and/or oil once again.
I showed you how to use the Spanish “sofrito” (with 1 f and 1 t) sauce base, made with mixed bell peppers and onions, almost 2 months ago, and added it to chopped tomatoes and chorizo sausage to make a nice pasta sauce and this time, we’re exploring the onion, carrot and celery sauce base, called “mirepoix” in French or “soffritto” (with 2 f’s and 2 t’s) in Italian to make another pasta sauce.
It’s the most delicate and basic of the sauce bases and I always have more of this sauce base mixture in the refrigerator because I always have leftover celery and carrots that I’d like to use up, with the onions, and it’s the most versatile of all sauce bases.
It's a simple dish with no overpowering flavors. The soffritto or mirepoix mixture is flavorful enough to complement without dominating the simple sausage meat and the additions of white wine, then chicken stock and finally cream, is why I decided to call it a “ragù” because despite its simplicity, it has much depth, almost like a slow-cooked and time-consuming traditional ragù.
Depending the sausages and the chicken stock that you use, you won’t need to add any salt or ground pepper or any additional flavors, except for a few fresh herbs, because those additions are probably already in there.
Try avoiding any fancier sausage meats that are smoked or too garlicky or with too many dried herbs and ground spices, like fennel seeds or chili peppers or paprika, that will overpower this sauce. I use the simplest pork sausage stuffing available, but you can also try using other lighter sausage meats made with veal or poultry too and then adjust.
By the way, I added no grated cheese on top of the pasta dish, because it was perfect without.
It's a true delight and I can’t wait to open up the next jar of the “mirepoix” or “soffritto” mixture soon, to remake something old or make something new … :)
