Pasta Funghi: Mushroom Pasta Bake

You probably sometimes do what I do. You go to the shop and see beautiful mushrooms. So you buy them, not even knowing why. Then the mushrooms spend one day in the fridge, then another, and on the third day you wonder… is it time to throw them away? I asked myself that question today and decided it would be foolish.

I did ask myself rather late, though: after coming back from a bike ride (brrr, it was cold) and only about 50 minutes before leaving for the cinema (to see an exceptionally scary film that has you asking “how?” more than “what?”, something called “10 Cloverfield Lane”—predictable, but sometimes it really makes you jump ;). Which meant I did not have much time. First I thought I would simply fry the mushrooms with onion and use them tomorrow in, say, a bake.

But I wouldn’t be me if a sillier idea hadn’t come into my head. Do something useful! Make myself a mushroom pasta bake in under 50 minutes to eat at work tomorrow. Perhaps even share it with someone? (BTW, the chef’s pâté was all eaten at the office today 🙂

And so pasta funghi became an option. Yes, funghi, simply meaning mushrooms, and since in Poland mushrooms mostly means cultivated mushrooms (so many of them in the forests ;), it seemed ideal. But I also had half a packet of dried porcini left over from the pâté, so my funghi really is a mushroom dish. A proper taste of the woods 🙂 And without heavy cream (don’t fool yourselves that this is a light dish, though—more of a real “tomato”, my evasive answer). And ha, another vegetarian-friendly dish on Prymitywna Kuchnia. All in 40 minutes.

At the cinema I even managed to buy popcorn before the screening started (but I quickly checked how many kcal cinema popcorn has and spilled half of it in shock). So quite a lot of good came out of a silly idea. I recommend it: I only tasted it today, but I can already tell it worked.

Recipe details:

Preparation time: about 20 minutes

Baking time: 15 – 20 minutes

Baking temperature: 200 degrees Celsius

Serves: 2-3 portions

Calories: tomato—no comment 😉

Ingredients for Italian-style mushroom pasta without cream:

• 30 decagrams cultivated mushrooms
• 15 grams dried porcini
• half a packet of pasta (mine was tube-shaped)
• 10 decagrams semi-hard cheese (I used half Emmental and half Dutch Gouda)
• 1 large onion
• dried lovage
• Italian spaghetti bolognese seasoning (plenty of dried chilli and dried Italian herbs; you can substitute dried chillies, lovage and herbs)
• ground black pepper
• salt
• olive oil
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Pasta funghi recipe:

I cooked and drained the pasta. I wiped the saucepan with kitchen paper and set it aside. It would come in useful later.

I heated two tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan and fried the moderately finely chopped onion, adding a teaspoon of sugar. While the onion was frying over a low “flame”, I sliced the mushrooms I had peeled beforehand. I added them to the pan, seasoned quite generously with pepper and added a little salt. I stirred.

I poured boiling water over the dried porcini, drained them and rinsed them with boiling water once more. I added the prepared mushrooms to the pan with the onion and cultivated mushrooms. I stirred and fried over a low “flame” for about another 10 minutes.

I put the drained pasta into the saucepan and added half a tablespoon of olive oil, a fairly generous amount of dried lovage and Italian bolognese seasoning (hot chillies and herbs), then salted it lightly. I added the finely diced cheese (Gouda and Emmental in my case). I mixed it and added the fried mushrooms and onion. I mixed everything thoroughly again.

I preheated the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. I transferred the mushroom pasta to a shallow ovenproof dish and put it in the oven for 15 – 20 minutes. The Italian mushroom dish was ready. Enjoy!

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