Italians Sausage and Linguine at the Italian Oven in Stockbridge, Georgia by Ruth Paget
One of my favorite places to eat lunch in Georgia is the Italian Oven in Stockbridge about thirty minutes south of downtown Atlanta.
On my most recent visit to the Italian Oven, I tried several dishes that I could make at home with a little planning even if I do not have the restaurant’s secret seasoning mix. Every southern restaurant seems to have a secret seasoning mix, which makes it only possible for reviewer’s to give an approximation of a dish’s flavor. However, it is worth describing dishes for their nutritional and economical value.
The first dish I tried at the Italian Oven is a perfect example of these values: sautéed slices of yellow Italian squash with lemony yellow horseradish mayonnaise. The squash slices were very thin from being cut with a mandolin. Squash is a little bland without a coating of horseradish mayonnaise that clears your sinuses and makes you feel healthy from all the Vitamin C in the horseradish
My main dish was sautéed Italian sausage with strips of sweet red peppers sautéed in olive oil with garlic with linguine added. This dish requires two sauté pans in addition to a pot of boiling water for the linguine.
In the first pan, you sauté slices of Italian sausage until they render fat. The sausage they use at the Italian oven is pork from an acorn-fed pig. The sausage is dark colored with a nutty flavor. When the sausage is sautéed, it has a beautiful aroma of anise (black licorice flavor) from the fennel that is used to season it. This pan’s contents cook while the second pan also has items cooking.
In the second pan, you sauté strips of sweet red pepper with garlic and olive oil until they are soft. Then, once the linguine is cooked, you add the drained linguine to the sweet peppers and toss them together. After that, you add the sliced cooked sausage to the linguine as toss them together.
This aromatic combination arrives at the table sizzling hot at the Italian Oven where they grate Parmesan cheese over it. This dish is delicious for someone like me who likes pork.
For dessert, I at a classic layered tiramisu dessert made with Savoiardi lady finger cookies, mascarpone cheese, stiff whipped cream, espresso coffee, coffee liqueur, and cocoa powder dusted on top. This dessert is a luscious treat for coffee lovers.
Without reservation, I would say that this was another superlative meal at the Italian Oven in Stockbridge, Georgia that I would recommend to other diners.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
