Author: rang2015

Paccheri With Mushroom Sauce

I sometimes attribute my fondness for mushrooms to the fact that my father claimed not to like them, a teenage rebellion that I never outgrew. My mother did not always respect his opinion, especially when it came to using cream of mushroom soup in her noodle casserole. He would sit down at the table, mutter something about poisonous mushrooms and dig in with the rest of us.

Mom’s Tuna Noodle Casserole was a popular dish with us kids. It was also one of her favorites, because it was easy to make, and even Dad approved of it, since it was a cheap way of filling up growing kids.

However, none of us would have thought of cooking Paccheri with Mushroom Sauce. We had never heard of paccheri, Mom never cooked with wine and would not have risked a battle with Dad by making a sauce of ground-up and sliced mushrooms that did not come in a can.

If you like pasta, you will probably enjoy Paccheri. They are large tubes cut in inch-long sections. There are many recipes for stuffed paccheri that I am tempted to try sometime, but this recipe for paccheri with a mushroom sauce is a quick and simple way to put a tasty dish on the table to please anyone who likes mushrooms.

As you can tell from the photo, it is not a particularly colorful dish. Most edible mushrooms are white or various shades of brown and gray, and once they are cooked and puréed the result unfortunately looks like fresh concrete.

But the flavor!! If you enjoy mushrooms, I can promise you that you will not be disappointed. You can use white button mushrooms, but I think that crimini (baby bella) mushrooms have more flavor, and you can combine mushrooms if you wish. A good combination is a half and half mixture of crimini and shitake mushrooms.

The basic recipe comes from Ciao Italia, the longest running television cooking program on PBS. I changed it a little to suit our tastes. Here is what I did and what I recommend.

INGREDIENTS:

3/4 lb. mushrooms, divided
4 T unsalted butter
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/3 cup olive oil
2 cloves garlic
1/2 cup dry white wine
1 and 1/4 tsp. salt, divided
1/8 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese
12 oz. package of paccheri
Water for cooking the pasta
Parsley for garnish

PROCEDURE:

Put two or three quarts of water in a large saucepan over moderate heat.

Wash and slice the mushrooms. Melt the butter in a nine-inch skillet or saucepan over moderate heat. Add a cup of the mushrooms and the pine nuts and cook them for five or six minutes until the mushrooms are soft. Transfer the mixture to a blender cup or food processor and make a nice gray purée.

Mince the garlic while the mushrooms and pine nuts are cooking.

Heat the oil in a large skillet over low heat, add the garlic and cook for about two minutes. Do not brown the garlic. Put the remaining mushrooms into the pan, raise the heat to moderate and cook for about four minutes, stirring often.

The pasta cooking water should be boiling by about this time. Add a teaspoon of salt and the paccheri and cook to al dente, about sixteen minutes.

Stir a quarter teaspoon of salt and a half cup of wine into the mushrooms and garlic in the skillet. Reduce the heat when the mixture comes to a simmer, stir in the purée and keep the sauce warm while the pasta finishes cooking.

Test the paccheri for doneness. Drain the pasta, reserving a half cup of the cooking water.

Add the paccheri and the half cup of cooking water to the sauce in the skillet. Sprinkle a quarter cup of Parmesan cheese and grind about an eighth teaspoon of black pepper over the mixture. Mix thoroughly, taste and adjust the seasoning.

Serve with a garden salad, bread and the same wine used for the sauce. Garnish with parsley and pass the remaining grated cheese.

NOTES: I tend to use sauvignon blanc or Chardonnay wine when a recipe calls for dry white wine, but there are lots of good Italian wines such as Soave that an Italian might prefer.

Grandma Libbey’s Soft Ginger Cookies

Our camp cook’s wife, Lorraine, shared her recipe for soft ginger cookies after I begged for it at one of the sumptuous Christmas open houses she and Chris hosted. As I have mentioned before, I really prefer cookies that remind me of cake rather than crackers.

I do like crackers, particularly when they are smeared with a nice ripe Brie or Camembert or are supporting a generous slice of aged Cheddar from Wisconsin or Cave Aged Gouda from the Caves of Faribaultt. I also use crackers in lots of recipes for everything from Italian Meatballs and Jerri’s Salmon Loaf to Nellie’s Rhubarb Raisin Pie and Phyllis’ Bar-B-Que Burgers, and of course, Jerri’s Oyster Stew demands oyster crackers.

I do enjoy an occasional crisp cookie, but I would sneak an extra one of Grandma Libbey’s Soft Ginger Cookies before I reached for a crisp sugar cookie. Lorraine got the recipe from Ms. Diane, as Chris calls her, who is married to his brother David. She contributed it to “Feeding the Flock,” a cookbook published by The Baptist Church of Grafton, Massachusetts.

In a note at the end of the recipe, she explains, “This recipe comes from David’s Grandma who made it frequently to celebrate, to console and to be enjoyed with cold milk.”

I think Diane says it all. It’s time to bake some cookies.

INGREDIENTS:

1 large egg
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups molasses
1/2 cup sour milk
1 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
2 tsp. baking soda
5-6 cups all-purpose flour

PROCEDURE:

First make the sour milk. Put one and one-half-teaspoons of vinegar or lemon juice into a measuring cup. Add enough milk to make a half cup. Stir the mixture and set it aside. Preheat the oven to 425º.

Beat the egg, sugar and molasses together in a large mixing bowl. Add the sour milk and beat well. Add the oil and beat until it is blended with the other liquids.

Sift the salt, ginger, baking soda and flour into a separate bowl. Add the dry ingredients to the molasses mixture a cup at a time, beating well between additions. If the dough is not firm enough to roll out after the last cup has been stirred in, add more flour.

Transfer half of the dough onto a well-floured surface. Use a spatula to turn the dough until it is covered with flour. Roll out the dough to a quarter-inch thickness. Cut with a floured cutter and place the cookies about an inch apart on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for six to seven minutes until the center of the cookie is set.

Work the scraps into the remaining dough and cut more cookies. Knead the final scraps into a ball and roll it out to make the rest of the cookies.

NOTES: If you want extra sweetness, sprinkle a little granulated sugar on top of the cookies before putting them in the oven.

Depending on the size of your egg and the kind of molasses, you may need to add a little more than six cups of flour. This recipe makes five dozen three inch cookies.