Mushroom Pappardelle - The Nigel Slater Way

It's a grey and showery day today in ol' Brisbane Town so a good day to stay in the kitchen and cook.  I have whizzed up Nigella's chocolate pots, and we are going to put together a quick pasta dish for dinner later.   Yes I know, it's topsy turvy land when I am volunteering to make and eat a pasta dish.  But Mr P. adores pasta, so I will give him a culinary thrill tonight. :=)


I was flicking through some of my cookbooks the other day, and came across another Nigel Slater book - The Kitchen Diaries. This is the first of his Diaries, where he looks into ingredients and recipes over a calendar year.  Very useful if you are after seasonal dishes.  So I flipped to September to get some ideas for Autumn/Fall, which of course we Antipodeans are in the midst of right now.  

Nigel's year in food 

I found this simple mushroom pasta dish.  Mushrooms are on our shelves all year round of course, but this ever-so-slightly cooler weather is perfect for a dinner like this.  And it makes the hubby really happy.  Turns out it is delicious, too.  Even for me, the ambivalent pasta eater.   


Serves 2

ingredients:


400g. of mushrooms, thinly sliced - I used 200g. Swiss Browns and 200g. button mushrooms

butter 75g.

2 tbs olive oil

3 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 French shallot, finely chopped

1/2 tsp lightly dried chilli flakes

250-300g. pappardelle

a huge handful of parsley, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

a dash or 2 of ground nutmeg (optional)

40g. of parmesan grated

a small handful of walnuts


Method:


Tip the mushrooms into a frying pan with the butter and olive oil

Fry gently till the mushrooms start to go tender

Stir in the garlic and shallot, and cook for a few minutes more  

Throw in the chilli flakes, stir and put aside 

Put a large saucepan of salted water on to boil

Pour the pappardelle into the boiling water 

Cook for 8 to 10 minutes till al dente (or however you like it)

Drain the pasta and fork it into the mushroom mixture

Add the parsley, salt and pepper, nutmeg if using, and the parmesan

Stir everything together gently

Scatter the walnuts on top

gather your ingredients      

slice and throw into your frypan 

throw in the butter and olive oil  

Mr P. stirring the mushies  

into the boiling water goes the pasta         

pasta slips into the mushies 

Mr P. stirs everything together   

throw on your nuts!  

Okay I confess; Mr P. made this!  I just threw the pasta into the water and chucked on the nuts at the end.  Well, he is the pasta and rice maker in the Pickings household. And I have to confess I jazzed up Nigel's recipe too.  I added the chilli and walnuts.  Oh and the French shallot and the nutmeg.  Mr P. and I both thought the walnuts were essential to give some texture to the slippery, slidy, savoury dish.    



As I have said before, you can read Nigel's prose like a novel.  Here is a quote about this dish: definitely not "a fashionable chef's twee plateful of contorted food drizzled with a ring of jus".  He says this is robust, loud-flavoured and awkward, but restores your faith in the pleasures of plain, simple eating.  Yay Nigel!

my pasta foodle