The Perfect Mushroom Pasta

I've been thinking about this for a long time.

During my brief period in my teens as an "almost-veggie" (i.e. I wasn't sufficiently horrible a teenager to make my Mum cook me a different dinner to the rest of the family *every* night) I got very heavily into trying to perfect two different mushroom pastas. There was the one in a very rich tomato sauce, with masses of heavily caramelised onions in, which I topped with a round of grilled goats' cheese; and then there was the one where I reduced about a third of a bottle of chardonnay (Californian was best, I found) in with the mushrooms and a ton of garlic to make a sweet, vanilla-y sticky sauce. Looking back, both were over-flavoured to the point where you could barely eat more than a few mouthfuls before feeling faintly nauseous.

I've been working for some months on a mushroom pasta that has a balance of several flavours, rather than focussing on strengthening one particular flavour. I nearly gave up the search when I saw Simon Hopkinson's  Baked Porcini Pappardelle, but it's really too involved a method for it to be the perfect mushroom pasta - it's certainly not perfect for any day when you have less than an hour to cook supper.

There are several small, but important, details in this pasta. The onion must be red, to add sufficient sweetness, and it must be finely chopped, so that the pieces almost melt into the sauce. The mushrooms must be thinly sliced for the same reason; they should ideally be chestnut, but normal button ones will do. 250g seems like a lot, but they reduce a lot, and they need to be an equal feature of this dish to the pasta even after that. The mustard must be wholegrain to give texture, and so that it is sufficiently mild.

Whilst I'm being prescriptive, I might as well note that it really is worth using decent quality pasta. For a long time I was tempted by the too-good-to-be-true pice of cheap pasta, until I realised it really was too good to be true: the pasta was soggy and slimy, regardless of how carefully I cooked it. De Cecco is good, and widely available; I've also been using Garofolo which is less easily available. And, at the end of the day, you're still getting a lot of food for a few pence.


Mushroom pasta


1 small red onion, or half a large one
1 clove garlic
1 large slice butter
small glug olive oil
75g short pasta - fusilli, penne, etc...
250g chestnut mushrooms
1 tsp wholegrain mustard
2 tbs creme fraiche
small handful of basil or parsley (or a mixture, I suppose), roughly chopped

Finely chop the red onion; finely chop the clove of garlic. Heat the butter and olive oil* in a medium saucepan, and bring a pan of water up to the boil.

Tip the onion into the pan of fat, and the pasta into the pan of water. Keep the onion on a medium heat, so that it is sizzling gently but not really browning. After 4-5 minutes, when it's looking soft and starting to turn golden, add the garlic, stir, and cook for a further minute.

Tip in the mushrooms, season well, and stir well. After a minute they will start giving up their juices, wilting and reducing considerably. After another few minutes, their juices will have mostly evaporated and they will start sizzling; at this point turn the heat down to its lowest setting.

Hopefully, your pasta will be cooked round about now; if it isn't, then the mushrooms will sit happily for a minute or two until it is. Once it's done, drain and put to one side.

Add the mustard, stir, then add the creme fraiche and mix well. Tip in the pasta, combine with the sauce, then finally add the herb(/s) and give a quick stir.

You could serve this with some parmesan, but I tend to find it rich enough on its own.


*Using two different types of fat might seem a bit odd. The butter is for the flavour, but it burns at a fairly low temperature, giving a bitter taste. The olive oil raises the burn temperature of the butter, adding little flavour but stopping the butter burning.

First Soup of Autumn

I came back from a week in Tenerife late Sunday night, and sitting down at my office desk on Monday morning a mere 20 hours after I'd been sunning myself was painful enough. Then I saw the tree outside my office window: orange. I appeared to have arrived back to face autumn, already.

The one plus-side to this seasonal change is that, having spent all summer pretending to enjoy salad whilst it rain, it is now acceptable to start making soup for lunch again. I wanted something that didn't feel entirely wintery, though, and had some peppers and squash in the fridge: ingredients that always make me feel slightly happier about letting go of summer.

When I say "roughly chopped" I don't mean *really* roughly. They need to be in 1-2 cm square chunks. It just doesn't really matter how precise you are, seeing as it's all going to be blitzed at the end anyway.


Squash and Pepper soup

1 onion, roughly chopped
2 sticks celery, roughly chopped
1 red chilli, finely chopped
1 red or yellow pepper, roughly chopped
1/2 butternut squash, roughly chopped
2 tsp fennel seeds
500ml good stock (I used pheasant, but that's because that's what I had in the freezer - a cube would be fine here)
75g red lentils (the small ones which take c. 20 mins to cook)

In a large saucepan (do bear in mind you're just about to add a pint of liquid to it), heat a v generous glug of olive oil, then tip in the veg, chilli, and fennel seeds. Turn the heat down to medium, as you just want to veg to gently saute and give up some of their liquid, rather than actually browning them. Cook, stirring ocassionally, for around 10-15 minutes, or until the onion is softened and melting.

Tip in the stock and bring to the boil. Once it's there, add the lentils, and simmer for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the lentils are dissolving and the squash is tender.

Blitz vigorously in a food processor/using one of those stick things. Eat.


This makes roughly two generous, or three meagre, lunch portions.