Pasta alla Norcina
/One of the best souvenirs of living in Italy for two years is pasta alla Norcina in my dinner repertoire. It’s oddly unknown outside of Italy, which is bonkers crazy considering how many taste points this hits and how easily it comes together. Take good sausage, mushrooms, and cream and you have the makings of what feels like a meal for a king, even though it’s one of those sauces that comes together while the pasta cooks.
We first had pasta alla Norcina at our friends’ Sante and Conci’s house, at a meal that was supposed to celebrate the olive harvest, but the harvest itself had to wait for a drier day, as the hills were too slippery for comfort. Conci ladled out the pasta and my son, known for despising mushrooms, took a polite bite before his eyes widened in amazement. He ate that entire plate of pasta. Plus seconds. And asked for thirds in lieu of dessert, making him Conci’s favorite of my children. Every time we visited after that, they’d take us to the room where a bed was laid with a fresh tablecloth, covered with pasta. And they’d laugh, “that’s Nicolas’s portion”. He laughed along with everyone but I know he secretly hoped it to be true.
Pasta alla Norcina is named after the Umbrian city of Norcia, which used to be famous across Italy as the center of buchering arts. Nowadays, unfortunately, it’s known around the world because of the earthquake that wracked the region in 2016. Norcia was one of the cities that took much of the brunt of those plates shifting—you can read more about that, and how the city is piecing itself back together in this post I wrote about Norcia in 2020.
I never make pasta alla Norcina without thinking of the warmth and welcome of that meal with Sante and Conci’s family, and without thinking of the strength of the community in Norcia, rallying to rise above obstacles and come out stronger.
It sums up what I love about Italy—the warmth, the welcome, the strength, the long history of shifting times, and of course, the heady flavors.
I hope this dish becomes a favored part of your own meal rotation!
Pasta alla Norcina
Ingredients:
one pound pasta (usually Umbrians use a short one, especally tubes like penne as the sauce loves hiding in nooks and crannies but any kind will do—even gnocchi!)
quarter cup of olive oil
one pound sweet Italian sausage, without casings (note: typical Umbrian sausages are loaded with garlic and black pepper. If you can find sausage described this way, get those. Otherwise, you can choose to up the pepper in your sauce and saute a glove of garlic or two in the olive oil when warming, then remove before adding sausage)
one small onion, finely diced
8 ounces diced mushrooms (white buttons work fine, but for more mushroom flavor, go for baby bella)
half a cup of dry, white wine
one and a half cups of heavy cream
2-5 tablespoon grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese
cracked or grated black pepper
Optional: a shaving of fresh nutmeg or 1 teaspoon grated truffle or preserved truffle paste (black truffles are a specialty of Umbria—in fact, the wild boar in the area feast on them, which perfumes the salumi)
Method:
Boil plenty of salted water in a roomy pot (pro pasta tip: taste the water as it’s heating. If it doesn’t taste like light sea water, add more salt). When it boils, add the pasta and cook according to package directions, making sure to reserve the pasta cooking water when you drain it.
As the water boils, sauté the sausage in a large pan over medium-high heat until cooked through, breaking up large pieces with a fork, about 10 minutes. Add the onions and mushrooms, and continue to cook until they just begin to brown.
Turn the heat under the pan down a little and deglaze with white wine. Scrape the browned bits to allow them to incorporate into the sauce. Let the wine cook off until reduced by half.
Add the cream and once it starts simmering, reduce the heat to low. Let it cook until it thickens a little, about 5 minutes. If the pasta isn’t ready by now, you can turn the heat off under the sauce, and put it back on when the pasta is ready.
Add the drained pasta to the sauce and toss to coat, with the heat at medium. Add the grated cheese and toss. Add some pasta water, a few tablespoons at a time if you need to loosen it up and make it saucier.
Turn the heat off and remove the pan from the heat. Add the grated cheese, mix well, then taste. Season with a good amount of black pepper and the truffle or nutmeg if using. Correct for salt. Serve with additional grated Pecorino cheese if desired. Buon Appetito!
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