Sausages with grapes, so simple, and SO tasty. Salsicce all’uva is a traditional vineyard worker’s dish, and one of the few examples in Italian cookery where fruit is included in a savory dish. This meal brings to mind fall in vineyards all over Italy — and it tastes pretty wonderful, regardless of the season or where you might be cooking.
The secret to this dish is cooking the sausages slowly, browning over a medium heat to develop flavor. The big thing is that you don’t want to cook them too quickly — because they’ll be brown (or burned) on the outside and still raw inside.
I’ve opted to move the sausages to the oven to finish cooking. The first time I tried this dish, I kept the sausages in with the grapes throughout the cooking time, which cooked them too hard for my taste (they seemed a little boiled).
Additionally, since American grapes are super-sweet, the dish needs a little acid to balance flavors. The balsamic vinegar takes care of this, but you can substitute a few squeezes of lemon if you prefer.
Italian Sausage with Grapes
- 1.5 lbs. mild Italian sausage,
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
- 2 cloves garlic, (crushed)
- 3 cups seedless grapes, (red or green)
- 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 3/4 cup chicken broth
- 3/4 cup dry white wine, (such as a pinot grigio)
- crushed red pepper flakes, (to taste)
- Wash grapes, pick off of stems, measure out 3 cups, and set aside. Peel and crush garlic, set aside.
- Preheat the oven to 300°.
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Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium to medium-low heat. Cook sausages for twenty minutes, gently turning them from time to time, until they are brown on all sides. About fifteen minutes into cooking, slit the skins of each sausage several times to allow some of the fat and juices to run into the skillet.
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Remove sausages from skillet, put in an oven-safe dish, and place into the oven. If the sausages have released too much oil into the skillet, remove some. You want about 2 to 3 Tbls. of the sausage juices left.
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If your sausage is completely cook (juices running clear), then drop the oven temperature to 250° to keep the meat warm, without continuing to cook it.
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Add chicken broth, wine, and crushed garlic cloves. Season with crushed red pepper flakes (lightly this time; you can taste and adjust seasoning at the end).
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Add grapes to the skillet, and stir well. Then cover and cook 10 to 15 minutes over medium heat (or medium-low heat if your burner runs hot) until the grapes begin to wrinkle and release juice.
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Take cover off of the grapes. Turn the heat up to high, bring liquid to a boil. Reduce to medium-high.
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Return sausage to the skillet. Continue cooking to reduce liquid to half of its original volume. Stir grapes and turn sausages frequently.
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When the liquid has reduced and thickened, add the balsamic vinegar. Stir well, and remove the skillet from the heat. You may not need salt, depending on how salty your sausage is — so, taste and adjust seasonings to your preference.
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Serve with garlic mashed potatoes, or, if you want to go lighter, opt for wilted spinach or other greens. Depending on appetites and side dishes, this should feed 5 to 6 people.
If you don’t have any balsamic vinegar, substitute fresh lemon juice.
Slightly different version: Add 1 thinly sliced onion — it would go in between steps 4 (where you take the sausages out the the skillet) and 5 (where you add the chicken broth and wine). So — after you take the sausages out, put the sliced onion in and cook until almost lightly brown — then proceed to step 5.
