Blog Archives

Mushrooms and Pasta

8/7/2016

Mushroom and marscapone pasta with garlic crouton

Hey there! After a long absence (being vacation then being sick) I'm back with another tasty recipe. I don't know about you, but I have those days where I want homemade food, but I just don't want to make a giant fuss out of it. Lately, I have to get up at 4.15 in the morning to go to work, make food all day, then come home needing something for dinner. These busy days where I just don't feel like doing a bunch of cooking is where I rely on easy pastas, my favourite of which are mushroom-based pasta dishes. This particular pasta with mushrooms and marscapone cheese is so easy and quick to make, and it looks like a million bucks. Also, it's pretty inexpensive to make, and that's always a plus. To top it all off, this dish takes between a half hour and 45 minutes to pull off. Did someone say perfect weeknight meal?

Just a note: I used chantarelles and portobello mushrooms in my pasta, which can get a bit pricey sometimes, but you can use regular button mushrooms or mixed packs. If you're a regular mushroom hunter, then by all means use an abundance of wild mushrooms in your pasta for an extra punch of flavour that's light on the wallet.

What You'll Need

2 servings

1 (250 g) pack fresh pasta of choice
500 g mushrooms of choice (I used 2 large portobello mushrooms and 300 g chantarelles)
2 onions, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, crushed or finely chopped
100 ml white wine
2 tbsp chopped fresh thyme
250 g marscapone cheese
250 ml whipping cream (48%)
2 chopped fresh parsley
juice of 3/4 lemon
50 - 60 g freshly grated parmesan cheese
salt and pepper
4 tbsp oil
½ baguette of choice

Instructions

For the Pasta:

Clean and slice your mushrooms into equal-sized chunks to ensure equal cooking.
Heat 2 tbsp oil on high heat in a large pan.
When the pan is just about smoking, carefully add mushrooms and brown approximately 3-4 minutes.
While mushrooms are cooking, begin heating your salted water for pasta.
Turn down heat to medium-high and add chopped onion to pan.
Sweat onions 2-3 minutes until translucent.
Add 3 cloves crushed garlic and fresh thyme.
Fry 1-2 minutes.
Add white wine and cook until reduced down to 1/4 of the original amount.
Reduce heat to medium.
Add marscapone and stir until melted.
Add cream and lemon, mixing well.
Allow sauce to bubble and reduce approximately 10 - 15 minutes until thickened.
Season sauce with salt and pepper.
Add approximately 45-50 g grated parmesan, reserving some to grate over the top.
Add parsley and stir well.
Turn heat to low while you finish cooking your pasta, which should take a few minutes if using fresh pasta.
Reserve a bit of your pasta water to thin out your sauce if it gets too thick.
Add pasta to sauce, and mix well.
Serve with a side of garlic croutons, freshly grated parmesan cheese and cracked black pepper over the top.

For the Garlic Croutons:

Cut baguette into slices. The more you angle your knife, the longer your slices of bread will be.
Heat 2 tbsp oil in a pan and fry baguette slices on each side until golden.
Carefully rub a skinless clove of garlic over the top of toast.
Serve with a bit of grated parmesan, a bit of salt, and sprinkling of freshly chopped parsley.

Pan fried garlic croutons with parsley and parmesan cheese

Final Thoughts

As I've stated above, when you drain your pasta, it's a good idea to save a couple cups of the boiling liquid. If your pasta sauce gets a bit to thick (which can also happen after you add your pasta in), then you can use the flavourful pasta water to thin it out a bit so it's not so gloopy. We're going for creamy here, people.

I hope you all enjoy this recipe as much as we do here. You can find a printable and shareable version of the recipe here, or you can use the links below to be kind and share with all your friends on social media! Feel free to leave a comment, too. If you want to see some of my other recipes, check out my recipes page.

Until next time, keep on being chefy.

2 Comments

Happy Birthday Canada

1/7/2016

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"Passion of the Nation" original image by blogger Jessica Borutski

Hello everyone! Happy Canada Day to all you wonderful Canadians out there in the world. It's not only Canada's birthday, though, but also the Quite Chefy blog's birthday! That's right. Ive been doing this blog for a whole year, now, and I think it's definitely helped me to be a better chef by sharing my favourite recipes and tips with all of you lovely people.

A closeup of Crunchie's honeycomb center. Photo from Wikipedia.org

Lately, I've been having a major craving for a Cadbury Crunchie bar. It's a bar of super light and crispy sponge toffee covered in creamy milk chocolate. I used to love the satisfying and slightly squeaky crunch of the toffee, which used to drive my mother bananas.

They're popular in Canada and the UK, but I've never seen one in Denmark, so, of course, I decided to make my own!

Humidity and Caramel: The Struggle

Where I live in Denmark is pretty darned humid, and for the past few weeks it's been particularly nasty where it almost feels like you can cut the air with a knife. Why does that matter? Well lots of water in the air means there is more water that the candy can absorb again once cooled down, resulting in a spongy or grainy texture.

I'm going to be 100% honest. Caramel is incredibly simple and also incredibly tricky. It's literally just melted sugar, but the variables and temperatures have to be perfect, else you'll just end up with a sticky mess.

Boiling sugar syrup

How pretty does that look? I'm not gonna lie. It took me MANY attempts to achieve this golden perfection because of various factors (mostly humidity and temperature issues). Luckily, I've done all the experimentation so you don't have to worry about it.

Ingredients and Instructions

2 1/2(625 ml) cups granulated sugar
2/3 (150 ml) cup glucose or corn syrup
1/3 (75 ml) cup water
4 tsp baking soda (bicarbonate)
2 tsp vanilla

In a large, heavy-bottomed saucepan, add sugar, syrup and water and heat over medium heat while stirring, until sugar is dissolved.
Once sugar is dissolved, stop stirring and bring to a boil, occasionally washing down the sides of the pan with a wet pastry brush.
While the mixture is boiling, find a large cake pan that's around 3.5 L, or 13 X 9 inches. Line with parchment paper or very well greased foil.
Bring mixture up to 149°C (300°F), which is the "hard crack" stage. If you don't own a candy thermometer find a cup or small bowl and fill with cold water. Using a spoon, carefully drip hot syrup into the water. When it hits the water, it should splutter and sound like it's cracking. It will form hard strings in the water instead of a ball. This is the hard crack stage.
Remove syrup from heat and carefully stir in vanilla and baking soda. It will quadruple (at least) in size, so a large pan is important. The mixture will turn a darker golden colour as you stir in the bicarbonate.
Carefully pour caramel into prepared cake pan and allow to cool for 1.5 - 2 hours.
Crack into pieces and enjoy, or dip into chocolate for something extra special.

Boil sugar syrup until it reaches the hard crack stage.

Instead of a blob in the water, the hard crack stage of sugar produces tiny, fragile sculptures in the cold water.

Make sure you pour your foaming caramel into a very large cake pan, else it can foam over and damage your counters.

Allow your caramel to cool and dry for a couple hours before cracking.

Break into shards to enjoy.

Or dip into chocolate for a tasty treat.

Be Careful

Sponge toffee (or honeycomb/cinder toffee) is fun to make and eat, but please be extra careful when working with molten sugar. This stuff is like lava. It sticks to your skin and takes a long time to cool down, meaning it can cause a very serious burn. If you get it on your skin, then run the affected area under cool water (not ice) as soon as possible to cool the sugar down.

Before taking the plunge into making your own caramel, you can also read this great guide entitled "Ten Tips for Making Caramel" by David Lebovitz.

Caramel that's too dark.

Fortunately, sugar is a very cheap ingredient. If you mess it up and burn it, like the one I made above, then just try again. Sugar can be tricky to work with, and practice makes perfect. I'm not sure about perfect, but it took me at least 10 attempts to get the recipe just right. Remember to have fun!

I hope that you all have a wonderful July first no matter where you are in the world. If you like this recipe, then remember to share with your friends. You can also find me on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram as QuiteChefy. You can also find a printable and shareable version of this recipehere.