Posts filed under 'funghi'
This was different from anything I have ever had and I liked it. It was rich and woodsy and real cold weather food. You have to love mushrooms, but if you do, you will also love this easy, make ahead casserole dish.
Pasticcio di polenta con funghi
for 8 as a first course
preheat the oven to 175°C or 350°F
1 large onion, chopped
olive oil
3 large cloves of galic left whole
1 kilo or 2.2 pounds of mixed mushrooms including, if possible some porcini
(I used a one pound 430 g can of button mushrooms, a one pound 430 g package of frozen mixed mushrooms,
1 ounce 30 g of rehydrated dried porcini and a fat tablespoon of porcini powder)
salt
a glug of fortified wine such as Marsala or sherry
125 ml or 1/2 cup fresh heavy cream
nutmeg to taste
a handful of fresh thyme leaves or a tablespoon of dried ones
250 g or 9 ounces raw polenta cooked in salted water according to directions
200 g or 7 ounces grated Pecorino cheese
First, put the dried porcini in a bowl and cover them with very hot water then leave them to soak and become softened. Once they are softened, remove them with your hands, so that any dirt is left behind. If you are using some canned mushrooms, drain them, too, then filter the rehydrating water into the juices from the can. We won’t be leaving behind any flavor at all.
In a large frying pan, heat about 60 ml or 1/4 cup good olive oil and start sauteing the mushrooms, sprinkled with a bit of salt to help them lose water. This process will take varying amounts of time depending on what kinds of mushrooms you are using. Should you have fresh ones, they will take little time. Canned and frozen ones rake more time, and the rehydrated dried ones are much like fresh once rehydrated. Cook them over moderate heat, stirring occasionally, until they are dried enough that the fat sizzles. Add the glug of wine and stir it up. Then add the reserved juices to the pan and cook them down until they are almost gone. Taste for salt and correct. Toss in the thyme and stir in the cream. Cook, stirring, just until it is bubbling hut, then grate nutmeg over the top, the quantity to your taste. Turn off the heat and leave it alone until you are ready to make the casserole.
Make the polenta and when it is creamy and fluffy, stir the grated Pecorino into it.
In a flat baking dish, spread half the mushroom mixture. Top that with all the polenta mixture. Ass the other half of the mushrooms, spreading them over the polenta. Put it into the oven for 30 to 40 minutes until bubbling hot. Serve immediately.
This dish also reheated very well in a covered frying pan over lowish heat. There were two serving left and I ate both of them quite happily, although a leftover lover I am not.
I believe this could easily be a main dish or a one dish meal for vegetarians, if accompanied by some great vegetables. It certainly has the physical and emotional weight to carry a meal.
However you eat it, it is terrific with a fruity red wine, such as a Salice Salentino, cheap and good from my beloved Puglia.
October 10th, 2008
I invited a friend to supper and she brought me one of the greatest hostess gifts I have ever had. It was a shallow basket filled with things from her vegetable garden and these porcini mushrooms which she had found and picked.
Porcini mushrooms
It’s very early to find porcini, but she had been in the mountains where they come earlier. I photographed these to show you how they look cleaned and uncleaned. All have been brushed and then pared away at the stem except the dirty one up front.
I had lots of ideas of what do do with them, but I knew that these porcini would make at least three dishes for me. I think of porcini and autumnal foods together, and one of my favorite autumnal pastas is pasta alla Norciera, named for a woman from Norcia. Norcia is an Umbrian town famous through the millennia for her pork. Norcia and pork are so connected that in many parts of Italy pork butchers are stilled named after the town, as they were in Roman times. This pasta, usually made with penne, reflects that area of Umbria which is high in the hills and surrounded by woods. It’s rich and deeply flavored and will stick to your ribs unless you run outside immediately after consuming it and chop some wood. I can swear to its deliciousness, because I have eaten it at least once every year since I arrived.
You do not need to have fresh porcini mushrooms to make this dish. I know they are becoming more available all the time, shipping from Finland, Chile, Poland so that even in Italy many times we are not buying Italian porcini. Dried porcini are very easy to find in most places and work perfectly in dishes for which the mushrooms are sliced or chopped. Boletus edulis grows in many places and has many names, Cepes, for example, being the French. I have never met a boletus edulis I didn’t like. Dried ones are fabulous and perfect for dishes like this. Really huge porcini are very often grilled like a steak, but these smaller ones you can use to make the hundreds of wonderful dishes like this pasta.
Pasta all norciera
for 2 to 4 people
1/2 medium onion, chopped
a little olive oil
2 sausages — if you are not in Umbria, you may need salt in your dish. Umbrian sausages are very salty and provide all the salt you could want. They are also very lean and can’t fry without a bit of oil.
2 porcini, sliced lengthwise or a handful of rehydrated dried porcini
65 to 125 ml (1/4 to 1/2 cup) heavy cream
a scraping or two of nutmeg
pepper
200-350 g pasta prepared according to the package and timed to be very al dente when the sauce is done.
Optional grated Pecorino or Parmigiano cheese.
In a frying pan, heat the olive oil and then fry the onions until transparent, without browning them. Cut open the sausages and crumble the meat into the pan, then fry that until it loses its color.
Add a little more oil and the mushrooms, stirring and sautèing until cooked but still firm. Then add the cream, stirring up every bit of the brown part that is on the bottom of the pan. Taste for salt and correct it if necessary. Continue to simmer this on a very low flame if possible, until the pasta is done. You may add a little of the pasta water to loosen the sauce a bit, but remember, too, that with cream sauces it is important that the pasta not be even a bit past al dente, or it will feel slimy.
Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce pan, tossing around to coat very well every piece. Add a bit of nutmeg, then grind fresh black pepper over the whole. Serve smoking hot to two as a main course or 4 as a first course.
That, just in case anyone questions it, is how pasta should be boiled. Except for delicate stuffed pastas or some gnocchi, pasta isn’t a gentle simmer with a dimpled and jolly surface, but crazy-wild-foamy and volcanic like that photo.
Grated cheese is optional because it adds salt. Mine could not take the additional salt, so the cheese was placed there to make it look better in a photo. This is not a particularly pretty nor photogenic dish! But it is a really satisfying thing on a cool or rainy day.
I could eat that right now and it is not yet even 11 AM here. Anyway, let’s send this off to Presto Pasta Night, because in Canada it’s going to be cold a lot sooner than here, and they should be well armed for it before it happens.
August 26th, 2008
Today alisonk came to lunch. She is doing a low carbohydrate regime, so I had to whip up some flour-free goodies. For a first course in place of pasta or risotto, we had a mushroom soup. I made the basic soup a day ago because most soups get better for sitting. When I reheated it I added the part that might not have refrigerated well.
As you can see, it is very dark and filled with mushrooms. The following recipe made soup for two.
No Carbohydrate Mushroom Soup
1 pound (.5 kilo) champignon or button mushrooms, cleaned and sliced. stems chopped
2 tablespoons butter
about .75 quart or liter of strong beef broth
salt to taste
heavy cream to taste
In a heavy pot I sautéed the mushrooms in the butter until they were quite browned and almost dried. Then I added the beef broth. I allowed this to cook and cook down several times, adding water to bring it up to level each time. Because I used “Better Than Bouillon” for the broth I added and needed no salt. When the whole thing was thoroughly infused, I poured it into a container and refrigerated it.
Today, a few minutes before I needed it, I warmed it up almost to a simmer and then added heavy cream, stirring it in, until it tasted balanced and rich. I ladled it into two deep bowl/cups and this is what happened. 
The verdict was “Good!”
For main course, or secondo, we ate Pollo fra Diavolo from this page.
With it we ate a cabbage dish from Puglia that I once had made into a pasta, but today served it as it was meant to be. Because there is no chance at bread, pasta or dessert, I changed the fat used from oil to duck fat, but it will be good without it if you are not as lucky as we are.
Cavolo Pugliese or Pugliese cabbage
This would have been enough for four people normally, but this was a slender menu indeed.
about 3 cups of slivered fresh cabbage
2 small hot red peppers peperoncini
about 2 tablespoons oil or fat
salt to taste
5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
Heat a big frying pan with the fat you will use. Crumble the pepper into it (or take a pinch from a jar of crushed red pepper.) Add the cabbage and toss it about a bit to get the fat distributed. Continue to cook it, stirring once in a while, until some of the edges start to brown and there are no really hard parts left. Add about 1/2 teaspoon or a decent sized pinch of salt, stir and taste. Add salt until it seems right to you. Toss in the tomato pieces and stir until they wilt a bit. Serve.
I had prepared a salad, but there was no room left for it. We had eaten well.
March 4th, 2008
