Sausage & Mushroom Pasta Skillet

Well, it wasn't the most productive summer for the blog, between travel and other stuffs.  I did get excited about one dutch oven chicken recipe, but it was a bit of a letdown.  So July was a washout...  Getting back in the groove, this Serious Eats recipe looked pretty serious...

Recipe

1/2 lb Italian sausage (hot or mild (but go with hot)), removed from casings
1/2 lb pasta, rotini or similar ridged
1 lb mushrooms, chopped (they recommend mixed but Portabellos were great on their own)
1 c Panko bread crumbs
6 oz Parmesan cheese, grated
2 small shallots, minced (or just an onion)
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 parsley leaves, chopped
2 tbsp chives, minced
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp butter
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 1/2 tbsp flour
2 c broth (they say chicken, I used veggie)
1 c heavy cream
salt & pepper

Combine the bread crumbs, 1/3 of the cheese, half the parsley & chives, 1/4 shallot, 1/4 garlic, and the olive oil, and mix together with some salt & pepper.

Melt the butter in a large cast iron skillet over medium high, and brown the sausage, breaking it up.  Set aside, leaving fat in the skillet.

Next you cook the mushrooms in the skillet until well browned.  Probably a little after that starts, put in your pasta.  OK back to the skillet.  Stir in the garlic and shallot for a minute, then stir in the soy sauce and lemon juice, then the flour.  Next, add the broth and simmer a couple minutes until it starts to thicken.  Stir in the cheese, parsley, chives, and sausage, and season with some salt and pepper.  Your pasta should be done and drained by now.  Add it too.

Top your skillet mixture with the bread crumbs.  Pop it in the oven about 10" under the broiler until golden brown, probably just a few minutes with some rotating.  Remove and eat.

Notes

That's a lot of ingredients...  I about halved everything, and left out some of the green herbs.
If that missed some flavors, I made up for it with a lot of cheese and generous (by my standards) salting and peppering.  It's a delicious, super-rich pasta.  In addition to the cheese, you've also got the butter/olive oil/other fats going - and cooked into those mushrooms.  Really good.  It's a bit extravagant for a pasta dish, but worth it when the occasion arises.  It proved to be championship-caliber carb loading for me :)