Tagliatelle with Lucanian Sausage and Porcini

Ingredients:

4 nests of tagliatelle (about 250g)
300g of porcini mushrooms (fresh or dried and re-constituted), cubed
300g of Lucanian Sausages (home-made or shop bought)
30g dried porcini mushrooms
500g passata
1 large glass dry white wine
50g butter
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp white flour
leaves from 4 twigs of calamint
3 cloves garlic
salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste

Method:

Begin by re-constituting the mushrooms in 500ml water for 2 hours.

Cut the sausages into small slices and fry in the olive oil for about 5 minutes over high heat. Add the wine and cook until reduced completely then remove the sausages with a slotted spoon and set aside. Take the pan off the heat.

Squeeze the re-constituted mushrooms to remove excess moisture and place in a blender. Sieve the water in which they've been soaking and place in the blender along with the butter, garlic, flour and calamint. Blend to a purée.

Put this liquid in the pan in which the sausages had cooked, transfer back to the heat and bring gently to the boil, covered, then simmer for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the diced mushrooms and the sausages, stir-in and simmer, covered for 10 minutes.

Add the passata (tomato juice) at this point, return to the boil and reduce to a low simmer, cooking for 20 minutes. (At this point it's good to cook the tagliatelle in salted water so that they are ready with the sauce).

Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning if needed. Plate-out the tagliatelle and spoon the sauce over the top. Season generously with freshly-ground black pepper and serve.