However much I would love to rush out into the forest and tell you to pick wild mushrooms, I am trying to make things easy. So, you can get all of this in your local supermarket.
This is a quick meal, so I won't waste time. As usual, work out your own quantities depending how much you are cooking.
- Bag of chestnut mushrooms
- big double-handful of dried porcini
- 1 shallot
- 3 cloves garlic
- Pecorino cheese
- Lots of black pepper
- splash of dry white wine
- Sea salt
- Parsely
- Double Cream
- Olive Oil / Butter
- Linguine Pasta
The trick of just about any dish like this is the frying pan. I was brought up to believe that unless you were frying an egg, you made anything that vaguely resembled a sauce in a saucepan. WRONG! That is a great way to steam all your dishes and we want to fry this. So, go and buy as big a frying pan as you can fit on your hob and start from there. A big high-sided one is good for pasta.
Soak the dried porcini in hot water for ten to 20 minutes. To be honest, using fresh is much nicer, but I have never seen them where I am. Ho-hum.`
Finely chop the shallot and garlic and fry slowly in an equal quantity of extra virgin olive oil and unsalted butter. Drain the porcini and slice up with the fresh mushrooms and add both to the pan. Carry on frying slowly.
You might want to start cooking your linguine at this point, if it is dried.
Add the chopped flat-leaf parsley to the pan.
Once the mushrooms are cooked, turn the heat up a little and add white wine. Boil almost all of it away - it is the flavour we were looking for - but not all!
Add the cheese, grated, and how much cream you want. I personally do not like it swimming in it, but just a nice coating.
Season with black pepper and cornish sea salt to taste.
Drain the cooked pasta and add to the pan. Stir it all up until the pasta is well and truly mixed in and serve.
Although I am a red wine drinker, this goes brilliantly with a white like Pouilly-Fumé.
Eat with just a fork (not a bloody spoon) so that you can keep one hand on the wine bottle.
Ciao!