Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Fun with Food: sausage spiders

When Joyce Maffezzoli used linguine in place of toothpicks (see yesterday's post), she said she didn't think she'd invented the idea and felt as though she'd read it somewhere. So I did due diligence and searched on "pasta as toothpicks." I found quite a few tips on using linguine to truss poultry, but then I stumbled on an idea that produced these cute little spider guys.

The suggestion I read called for hot dogs, but I'm not a fan so I used mango-chicken sausages instead. I stuck in 4 lengths of linguine (for 8 legs) and cooked it in boiling water for the amount of time needed to make the pasta tender.

I didn't take it to the next step--how to serve them--because I was amused enough by their cuteness. But since I don't see an adult struggling to eat a whole plate of sausage spiders, this is probably just a fun dish for kids.

3 comments:

  1. The small portion of the linguine that was inside by the sausage....was it fully cooked or was it underdone due to being "insulated" from the hot liquid by the sausage?

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  2. It was definitely cooked all the way through (though perhaps a little more al dente than the rest of the spider leg).

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  3. AnonymousMay 05, 2009

    I don't like spiders.

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