Lemon Thyme and Ginger

Pappardelle with Sherry Mushroom Sauce

Pappardelle with Sherry Mushroom Sauce, a recipe.

 A silky and chunky mushroom sauce recipe perfect with fresh or dried, long wide shape pasta. With a pound and a half of mushrooms, it has a deep mushroom flavor seasoned with dry Spanish sherry and fresh rosemary.

My stress level is very high now and I desperately need to chill out. In-between two nor’easters, extended power outages, and no internet, I migrated my website from one hosting service to another. Maybe I should have waited until the storms cleared, but then I would still be waiting. No internet.

For over a week my website fluctuated between it’s old home and new one, appearing with different styling and connections. Just like we went from house to house seeking warmth and shelter after the storm. Fortunately, we had a place to go, not like my website that was floating between two homes.

Pappardelle with Sherry Mushroom Sauce, a recipe.

Mushroom Sauce to Sooth the Soul

Amid cleaning out my refrigerator and freezer and restocking our supplies, I spied a pint of store made fresh cream of mushroom soup. I grabbed it up like it was the last pint of soup in the store. Instinctively, I knew other than my internet service returning, cream of mushroom soup was the medicine I needed to calm my mind.

Back home, with each sweet and earthy slurp my body melted into the serene soup. Selfishly, I wanted more and next to mushroom soup, pasta with mushroom sauce grounds me. Like cream of mushroom soup, mushroom sauces for pasta is at the top of my favorite food list. When two of the most comforting foods combine, it is difficult to hold onto any worries. It is time to make this at home.

How to store mushrooms Once I open a sealed package of fresh mushrooms, I put any remainder mushrooms in paper bag. Mushrooms get slimy in plastic bags and containers.

Lidia’s Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine By Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali

Pappardelle with Sherry Mushroom Sauce, a recipe

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Pappardelle with Sherry Mushroom Sauce, a recipe.

Pappardelle with Sherry Mushroom Sauce

Pasta coated with a silky mushroom sauce is for the mushroom lover in your family. I like to use an assortment of cultivated mushrooms with some dried wild mushrooms. The variety add more depth of flavor and cuts down on the cost. If you have a bounty of wild mushrooms, all the better. Please note portabellas and baby bellas (crimini) mushrooms, turn the mushrooms and sauce a darker brown and grayish color during the cooking process. A squirt of lemon juice will prevent the brown-grey color from getting too dark. If you use portabellas, remove the dark gills before you slice them. 

Wide flat noodles are my preferred pasta shape with this smooth mushroom sauce. Often pappardelle or tagliatelle are hard to find so penne is a good substitute. If you can get fresh pasta go for it, but make sure you time the pasta to reach just shy of al dente when the sauce is done cooking. Fresh pasta is best eaten right after it is cooked.

This recipe is adapted from Lidia's Mastering the Art of Italian Cuisine by Lidia Matticchio Bastianich and Tanya Bastianich Manuali, Tagliatelle with Mushroom Sauce. 

Course Main Course
Cuisine Italian
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 40 minutes
Total Time 50 minutes
Servings 5
Author Ginger

Ingredients

  • .5 oz (14 g) dried porcini mushrooms*
  • 1 cup (250 ml) boiling water
  • 1 lb. (454 g) dried or fresh pappardelle pasta or tagliatelle, or penne
  • 2 TB extra virgin olive oil
  • 1.5 lbs 750 g assorted mushrooms, sliced thin
  • 1 leek cleaned and minced
  • 3 cloves of garlic minced
  • ½ tsp Kosher salt
  • Fresh ground black pepper
  • 2 TB fresh rosemary minced (thyme or sage)
  • 3 TB tomato paste
  • 2 TB dry sherry or Cognac
  • 1 - 1.5 cups (250 - 375 ml) reserved mushroom liquid, or a combination of vegetable or chicken stock and mushroom liquid
  • 2 TB butter
  • Handful of Italian parsley chopped for garnish
  • Fresh finely grated Romano cheese

Instructions

Reconstitute the dried mushrooms

  1. Place the dried porcini mushrooms in a small bowl and pour the boiling water over the mushrooms. Stir the mushrooms and poke at them to submerge the mushrooms under the water. Quickly cover the bowl with plastic wrap and set aside for 20 minutes. Remove the mushrooms from the liquid my lifting them out with your hands or a slotted spoon and rest them on a cutting board. Pour the liquid through a fine mesh strainer, lined with a double layer of cheese cloth, into a small bowl. Finely chop the reconstituted mushrooms and set aside. Reserve the mushroom liquid for later.
  2. Fill a large stock pot with water and bring to boil. Once the pasta water reaches a vigorous boiling point and add about 2 teaspoons of Kosher salt.

Prepare the mushroom sauce

  1. While the water is coming to a boil, heat a large skillet, about 12 inches (30cm) or sauté pan over medium-high heat. Add 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil add all the fresh mushrooms to the pan. (If you use a smaller pan, you may want to sauté the mushrooms in a couple of batches.) Sauté stirring occasionally until they are cooked through and all their liquid has evaporated.
  2. Add the minced leeks, garlic, minced reconstituted porcini mushrooms, half the minced rosemary, Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper then stir to coat the vegetables. Cook until the leeks are soft about 5 minutes. Push aside the vegetables to uncover the hot spot of your pan and add the tomato paste to toast it over the hot spot for about a minute. Mix the tomato paste with the vegetables and cook for 4 minutes. Add all liquids, 1. 5 cups (375 ml) broth (combined with or without mushroom water) plus the sherry, and the butter. Turn down the heat to medium and simmer the mushroom sauce until the butter is melted and incorporated into the sauce, about 5 minutes. Taste and add more salt and pepper if needed.

  3. Add the pasta to the salted boiling water and cook until al dente. Refer to the directions on the back of the pasta box. Occasionally stir the pasta so the strands do not stick together. Once cooked, remove the pasta from the water using tongs and add it directly into the pan with the mushroom sauce. Toss to evenly coat the pasta with the sauce. Sprinkle with the remaining minced rosemary and serve.
  4. Serve immediately garnished with minced parsley with finely grated fresh Romano cheese.

Recipe Notes

Dried porcini powder is another way to get earthy mushroom flavor when cooking with cultivated mushrooms. Start with 1 teaspoon. Taste, then adjust with more if needed.

Pappardelle with Sherry Mushroom Sauce, a recipe.

More mushroom recipes for the mushroom lover:

Farro with Mushrooms and Rosemary  Sugar Snap Peas with Shiitake Mushrooms and Ginger

Mix up the Mushroom Sauce

Instead of a pasta sauce, spread the mushroom sauce over polenta, grilled steaks, chicken or white fish.

Top bruschetta with the mushroom sauce. Toast slices of crusty French or Italian bread then paint each slice using a garlic clove. Top the garlic toasts with the mushroom sauce and serve as an appetizer.

Add some cream or crème fraîche to the mushroom sauce for a creamy adaptation. Start with a half of cup (125 ml) and taste. If you use cream add it with the stock, but do not let the sauce boil. If you use crème fraîche, add it at the end before you add the pasta.

Switch up the herbs to reflect the season. Mushrooms taste delicious with thyme, rosemary and sage, but in the summer months, try it with basil.

Experiment with the texture. For a slightly smoother sauce, purée half of the sauce until smooth, then add the purée back with the other mushrooms. Adjust the thickness with more stock.

For a heartier mushroom sauce, add roughly chopped tomatoes to the sauce before you add the stock. Proceed as directed.

Thank You

If it wasn’t for free Wi-Fi at various stores in my area I would not have been able to get my website up and running and publish this post. Thanks to Panera and Starbucks for providing the service. It was a real-life saver for many people like myself during the aftermath of two nor’easters within a weeks’ time. This is not an ad or a sponsored post, just a friendly thank you.

Pappardelle with Sherry Mushroom Sauce. A silky and chunky mushroom sauce recipe perfect with fresh or dried, long wide shape pasta. With a pound and a half of mushrooms, it has a deep mushroom flavor seasoned with dry Spanish sherry and fresh rosemary.

© 2018, Ginger Smith- Lemon Thyme and Ginger. All rights reserved.

1 Comment

  1. Eric

    August 5, 2020 at 6:06 pm

    Looks like a good recipe but you forgot to add the sherry deglaze to the instructions.

    Reply

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