What’s for dinner? The age old question. I’m staring in the fridge to see what I’ve got to work with and I see a tub of Costco crimini (chestnut) mushrooms. Mushroom risotto is always an option (a favorite of May and her mum) but I get tired of making the same dish over and over. And so, as I often do, I consulted Dr Google.

There are thousands of recipes using mushrooms but this one from The Mediterranean Dish website caught my eye. It being a miserable rainy day in March I didn’t fancy a trip to the store to buy ingredients so I adapted the recipe from the original to accommodate what I had on hand.

In the first place, Suzy Karadsheh, author of The Mediterranean Dish, calls for 3 kinds of mushrooms: plain old white button, crimini and portobello. I only had crimini and some dried porcini ‘shrooms. She also adds 1/4 cup (60ml) of red wine (Merlot specifically) and I wasn’t inclined to open a bottle for just 1/4 cup. Yeah, I know, I could have drunk the rest of it but then who knows how the recipe would have turned out! Anyway, I chose to use the porcinis and reduce their soaking liquid to 1/4 cup to use instead of the wine. It reduced to almost a syrupy consistency and added an even more intense mushroom flavor. Yup, that was a winner! Suzy adds walnuts for a little textural contrast. We are not big fans of walnuts so I added a handful of pepitas (a kind of pumpkin seed) I had in the fridge. You could add some toasted pine nuts too if you like, or coarsely chopped and toasted cashews.

The Great Unwashed!

Do you wash your ‘shrooms before cooking them? I don’t.

Unless you are foraging for your own mushrooms in the forrest, the ones you buy at the store are almost certainly grown in a sterile compost material. But even though it is sterile the bits of the growing medium you see on the mushrooms need to be removed for obvious reasons. So how do you do that?

Some people insist you wash your mushrooms. However, if you do you should do so right before cooking otherwise they can become slimy. You can buy these cute little brushes to dust off any debris but that just means another single use tool to keep in your drawer. I prefer to lightly dampen a kitchen towel – paper or cloth – and gently wipe off any dirt. But that’s just me. I’m not here to tell you how to clean your mushrooms, just as long as you do clean them.

The Pasta

This is a pasta dish and choosing which pasta to use is something to consider. In Italy it matters a great deal to choose the right pasta to match the sauce that goes with it. Chunky sauces need a pasta shape such as orecchiette, farfalle, tubetti, penne, etc. that will capture the chunky bits. Long pasta shapes are better with smoother sauces. I must confess, not being Italian I do not have the same passion for matching pasta to its sauce as a native Italian might. When I make pasta dishes I do try to respect the traditions of the Italian cucina but I am not obsessive about it. So for this dish, ideally you will want a shape suitable for a chunky sauce but failing that, just use whatever you have on hand.

Kinda Sorta Related…

Well, not really but an interesting aside anyway.

You’ve likely heard of MSG, right? That’s Monosodium Glutamate if you don’t know.

Glutamic Acid is a substance found in seaweed. There is a lot of science involved with the effects of glutamic acid on the taste sensors on the tongue but suffice to say, it boosts the flavor of foods and contributes to what we have come to know as Umami, a Japanese word that broadly translates to ‘savoriness’. Many cultures around the world eat seaweed in one form or another, including Japan. Somewhere around the turn of the 20th century a Japanese chemist isolated the glutamic acid in seaweed and created MSG. This gave us the convenience of seaweed’s umami boosting glutamic acid in a jar.

Now it turns out, not too surprisingly, that while glutamic acid is abundant in seaweed it is also found in other foods like tomatoes, mushrooms and parmesan cheese among many others. This is why, in my opinion, for the flavor to simplicity ratio you can’t beat Italian food. That is to say, you can make very simple Italian dishes that are intensely flavored and with relatively little effort.

Another little diversion and then we’ll get back to the recipe…

When you buy a wedge of parmesan cheese (the real McCoy mind you. None of the cheap stuff and certainly not anything pre-grated!) it will contain that umami boosting glutamic acid. But here’s the thing, the highest concentrations of it are nearest the rind. And what do we do when we get down to the rind? We chuck it in the compost bin, right? Big mistake! Put it in a freezer bag and keep it in the freezer. Next time you make a pot of soup or stew, throw in a rind or two for a boost of flavor.

OK, back to the Recipe

The whole point of that discussion on MSG is to say that this recipe has a lot of mushrooms – over 6oz (170g) per serving (not to mention umami rich tomato paste) so you can imagine how tasty it will be. 170g per person might seem like a lot but that’s the uncooked weight. By the time it cooks down it will have given up much of its water and it will be reduced by about half; a much more reasonable amount per person. It comes together pretty quickly too; the most tedious part being the cleaning and chopping of all those mushrooms. And speaking of chopping the mushrooms, you will want to chop or slice them into fairly large pieces – something between 1/4″ and 1/2″ (6-12mm) and tending towards the bigger size. If you cut or slice them too small they will cook down and disappear into the sauce rather than be the dominant presence they are intended to be.

Once you have your mise-en-place done this comes together quite quickly. You will want to rehydrate the dried porcini mushrooms in hot water a good 30-60 minutes before you start to give them time to soften and to get cool enough to handle.

While the porcinis are soaking you can get on with the rest of the prep: cleaning and chopping the mushrooms, mincing the garlic and shallot and gathering the rest of your ingredients and equipment.

The process goes something like this…

1. First, carefully lift the rehydrated porcinis out of the water and squeeze them to remove as much water as possible. Take care not to pick up any of the grit at the bottom of the jug you soaked the mushrooms in. Roughly chop the porcinis.
2. Now slowly pour the porcini soaking liquid into a small pot, again taking care to leave behind the grit at the bottom of the jug. It’s better to sacrifice a couple of tablespoons of soaking liquid than to ruin the dish by including mushroom grit. Set the pot on a medium high fire and bring it to a boil. Reduce the liquid to about 1/4 cup (60ml). It should be slightly syrupy. Depending on how high you have the fire this will take about 15 minutes or so. Remove the pot from the heat and set it aside.
3. You will want to put a pot of water on to boil for the pasta. Now you can go the traditional route, using a lot of water and a lot of salt, or you can use less water which will provide you with a very starchy pasta water that will give your sauce a lovely silky texture. If you do use less water you will want to reduce the salt a bit too, otherwise it may be too salty. For this much pasta I would recommend going with 2 quarts (2L) of water and 1-1/2 Tsp salt.
4. Have ready a colander set in a large bowl in the sink to drain the pasta and capture the pasta water.
5. While the pasta water is heating up you will heat the oil in a 12″ (30cm) skillet over medium high heat and sauté the garlic, red pepper flakes and shallots for a minute or two. Don’t let the garlic burn! Then you will add the crimini and porcini mushrooms with a generous pinch of salt. You will want to cook them for about 10 minutes by which time the water released from the mushrooms will almost completely evaporate.
6. As soon as the mushrooms are cooking you are going to add the pasta to the now boiling water and cook it to 2 minutes shy of the time recommended on the package. It’s all about timing; you want the pasta to be ready when the mushrooms are just about done so set your timer.
7. Back to the mushrooms; when the pasta has a minute to go it’s now time to add the tomato paste, rosemary, reduced soaking liquid, pepper and 1/2 cup (120ml) of pasta water to the pan and give it a little stir.
8. Drain the pasta in the colander you have ready in the sink and don’t forget to save the pasta water.
9. You are going to dump the pasta into the mushrooms along with 1/2 cup of the pasta water. You will need to continue cooking the pasta, adding some of the reserved pasta water a 1/2 cup at a time for 2-3 minutes until it is just cooked through but a tiny bit al dente. You need to toss the pasta continuously at this point since it isn’t completely submerged in water as it was in the pot and the exposed top won’t cook properly. When the pasta is cooked to your desired doneness (al dente is preferred but you’ve got to eat it so cook it how you like it) there should be a little bit of thick, starchy water in the bottom of the skillet.
10. Why are we going to all this trouble, you may ask. Why not just cook the pasta completely in its water then add it to the mushrooms? Yes, you could certainly do that but slightly undercooking it before adding it to the sauce lets the pasta absorb some of the mushroom flavor so the whole dish is flavored throughout. Tossing the fully cooked pasta into the sauce will give you a tasty sauce on top of neutral flavored pasta. However, you’re the boss in your kitchen so you decide which way you want to go.
11. Either way, you will want to turn off the fire when the pasta is cooked through and continue tossing the pasta for a minute or two, adding a dribble of pasta water if the pan gets too dry. This will let the pan cool down a little bit before you add the parm. If the pan is too hot when you add the cheese it will separate and turn rubbery.
12. Add the parmesan cheese and the butter, tossing to create a luscious creamy sauce and adding a tablespoon or two more of pasta water if necessary to get the consistency you like.
13. Finally, stir in the pepitas or pine nuts.
14. Serve on warm plates with another sprinkling of parm and if you are feeling decadent, a little drizzle of truffle oil.
15. If you are confident enough you can reduce the porcini soaking liquid, cook the pasta and the mushrooms all simultaneously. If not, do it in stages like this:

• Reduce the porcini soaking liquid and set it aside. This can be done well in advance.
• Cook the mushrooms but stop after Step 6 above and before you add the tomato paste, rosemary, reduced soaking liquid and a scoop of pasta water.
• Cook the pasta and when it’s half way done, reheat the mushrooms and continue with the recipe as described in Step 7, above, adding the tomato paste, rosemary, soaking liquid and a little pasta water.