The ‘Shroom Pasta that’ll make you think you’re really tripping

Hello to my tiny community of blog followers! Apologies for the delay on posting some recipes lately, but I’m back here with a really special gift for you this week: the recipe to my famous mushroom pasta (yes, another recipe I kind of stole from my father).

This pasta will make you want to shut your computer off at work at 5 pm sharp, run home, and make IMMEDIATELY. It’s another one of my weekly go-to recipes – super easy, fast, and incredibly delicious. If you want a recipe to make to impress literally anyone, this is it. The final product yields some complex flavors, but the actual cooking and the ingredients are all fairly simple!

There are a couple of notes I’d like to add before you begin tripping on this shroomy shroom shroom pasta (just kidding). First, it’s imperative to have a high-quality Parmagiano Reggiano (none of that Wisconsin Parmesan stuff for this – it’ll make your meal go from “Wow!!! Complex! Morels! Parmagiano! Sauce!” to “This is just like Olive Garden”). Just trust me on this one.

The second thing is that this pasta is extremely mushroom-heavy – if mushrooms aren’t your thing, you may want to sit out on this one unfortunately.

The third note pertains to cooking advice. Like I said, this meal is super fast and simple and one of my weeknight staples; however, soaking the dried mushrooms does take a bit of time. What I like to do is come home from work or the gym or wherever and if I know I’m making this, the first thing I do is boil some water and soak the dried mushrooms. That way, you can go about doing your other household things you need to get done, and when you’re ready to cook, the mushrooms are already presoaked and prepared. Voila!!!

Another thing I’d like to add is that my father’s original recipe for this pasta (which mine is a divergent variation of), incorporates meat. As you may or may not know, I’m vegetarian, so I obviously won’t be lathering on slabs of meat to this, but for my cow-lover friends (or cow-hater friends, depending on how you look at it) I’ll offer an alternative step if you’d like to add meat. For my advocates of cow survival, I’ll add in a couple of notes to make this recipe vegan.

Ok enough jabbering, here is the recipe for the pasta of your dreams!

Trippy ‘Shroom Pasta with Cream Sauce

Serves two. Estimated time: 20 minutes (not including presoak of dried mushrooms, which is about 30 additional minutes).

Ingredients

• Dried mushrooms (I like a mix of morels and chanterelles – I use maybe a quarter cup for two people)
• Fresh mushrooms (I use an entire one of those mushroom variety packs, I think they’re about 4-6 ounces. You’re also welcome to make your own assembly of mushrooms you enjoy. For this recipe if I’m going to pick my own mix, I like to use shiitake, morels, oyster, and maitake)
• 4-5 cloves of garlic
• Shallot (optional. As in, if you have it at home/are motivated to go to the grocery store and purchase, use it, otherwise, it’s OK – the shallot just adds a bit more flavor)
• About 2 TBS Olive oil
• Salt to taste
• About 1/4 cup of Heavy whipping cream*
• Filet mignon (enough for two people) extremely thinly sliced
• Pasta (enough for two people. I LOVE Paolo’s gluten free pasta – they come in these little pre-portioned nests that are exactly one serving of pasta. I really like that because I feel like I personally tend to make way more pasta than necessary and then overeat. This sauce in and of itself is pretty filling, and one serving exactly of pasta per person should be good. If you’re based in NYC, you can find Paolo’s at Grace’s Marketplace – Upper East Side.)
• High quality grated Parmagiano Reggiano (again, Grace’s on the Upper East Side has literally the best grated Parmagiano I’ve been able to find at any grocery store)

Recipe

1. Place dried mushrooms in a medium-sized bowl and boil about 2-3 cups of water.
2. Once the water has boiled, pour it over the dried mushrooms and let them soak for about 30 minutes.
3. In the meantime, chop up the shallots and garlic, and clean off the fresh mushroms. (Maybe also grab a glass of wine and do something else since the dried shrooms will be soaking for a bit, and the rest is pretty quick to make.)
4. Once the dried mushrooms have been soaking for thirty minutes, place the olive oil in a nonstick pan and turn the heat to medium-high.
5. After about a minute and a half (or until you put your hand right above the skillet and it feels hot), throw the garlic and shallots in, turn the heat down to low, and sautee for about a minute.
6. Put the fresh mushrooms in the pan along with the garlic and shallots, turn the heat back up to medium, and use a spatula to mix everything around and facilitate the cooking of the mushrooms. This is the time where you’d like to add the initial salt (and pepper if you’d like) to taste, but you can continue adding both salt and pepper throughout the recipe as you taste the progress and evolution of the mushrooms.
7. Meanwhile, drain the dried mushrooms and reserve a tiny bit (less than 1/4c) of the shroom water.
8. Once the fresh mushrooms have almost completely cooked, add the dried mushrooms and shroom jus to the pan and continue to sautee. Turn the heat up to medium-high to help the shroom jus evaporate.
9. Add water, a splash of olive oil, and some salt to a pot and let it start to come to a boil, and you can continue along with the recipe while it gets to a boil.
10. As soon as the shroom jus has almost entirely evaporated, add the heavy cream and mix everything in the pan*. Maybe now you’d like to add more salt or pepper if necessary (take a lil taste test and see).
11. Cover the pan and let the cream thicken up for a few minutes. Pour yourself another glass of Barolo.
12. After the sauce has really thickened up (after about 3-5 minutes), add the pasta to the boiling pot of water.
13. **Meaty Friends: Now is the time to add that filet mignon. Move the mushroom sauce to one side of the pan and add the filet slices (make sure they are thin as can be). After they start to cook through, flip each slice over. Once the filet mignon is cooked through, mix the meat with the rest of the sauce, add a splash more of heavy cream, and cover the pan again.
14. Add another splash of heavy cream to the mushroom sauce and mix, and do a final quick taste test to make sure the mushrooms are properly seasoned with salt (and pepper if you’re using). Cook pasta according to directions on the package and drain. When I drain my pasta, I like to add a pat of butter and a bit of salt.
15. Serve the pasta in a soup dish and place the mushroom sauce on top. Garnish with a bit of that high quality Parmagiano and you’re done!!

*VEGAN FRIENDS: You can either use a vegan heavy-whipping cream (which admittedly I’ve never tried), or omit the cream and serve the sauce as is.