How to Make Italian Sausage with Broccoli Rabe

How to Make Italian Sausage with Broccoli Rabe Promeals Italian Sausage over Broccoli Rabe Chef: Don Pintabona Restaurant: Dani Cuisine: Italian Location: 333 Hudson St. NY, NY Jean Tang: There are two things for me that are true about sausage; I never known what is in them and I never thought I’d been making them but I am sitting in an Italian restaurant called Dani in lower Manhattan and the chef here promises that his sausage are easy to make, fast and delicious. So, what have we got here? Don Pintabona: This is a pork button. What is nice about this is that naturally it has a good balance of fat to meat ratio because you will always need a little bit of fat when you make sausage. Jean Tang: Right. Don Pintabona: So, rather than buying something lean like a loin let’s say, you would have to add fat to it, this already has it in. So really, you are using everything. Most sausage is put through grinder but this is all hand cut and what that does is give you a really, really nice meaty texture. So, we are going to mix what we have here and very simply season with salt. We got about 1 1/2 ounce of salt. This is about five pounds of meat. Garlic is optional, some people really, really like it. Some old style Italian sausage makers do not like any garlic. This is ground fennel seeds. So, it’s a nice Italian style fennel sausage. A little of paprika, a little color to it; little fresh ground black pepper and chopped parsley. So, we are going to mix this up. Jean Tang: I just want to tell our viewers about the fact that you do not need a machine like this at home, the sausage press. Don Pintabona: Exactly. Jean Tang: And you are going to show us another way to do it, right? Don Pintabona: My dad has a funnel. I think it was from about 1920s. So, a very simple funnel could do the same trick. What you do here is find the end of it and blow into it just to make it a little easier and you just put in the casing right around and you are going all the way down into it. Jean Tang: Okay. Don Pintabona: Then you’re just going to stuff it with the sausage mix. See? As I pulled, I make it a little—it is easier to put on the casing. Jean Tang: There we go. Don Pintabona: I’m going to cut it right here. So, if you want to go to crank -- Jean Tang: I am cranking. It is coming through. Look at that. It is too cool. Don Pintabona: Slow down a little bit. Jean Tang: So, I love the fact that you can get this and you can make it all natural and you can get great pork in. Don Pintabona: Really, you can use turkey. You could use any type of meat. If you do not want to eat pork, you can flavor it however you like. Now, we want to just even it out a little bit. Now, if you see little air pockets, just poke it out of it. In this way, we can make it nice and uniform. And if we want to make the links, we just do a little twist and then we want to go on the opposite direction for the next one. This is ready to be cooked. Bingo! Jean Tang: Abracadabra. Don Pintabona: Now, we’re going to make something that all Italians love, especially for a dish like the sausage, broccoli rabe. I cook it quickly in water. Slivered garlic, I put it in but I don’t want it to burn, so I am going to move quickly and quickly put the broccoli. Add a little bit of the fresh ground red pepper so that flavor smells nicely with the garlic and we need a good amount of salt. Jean Tang: Fabulous! Dad’s homemade sausage straight from the source. Thank you so much. Don Pintabona: Thank you.