cook: chanterelle mushroom pappardelle

Luckily over the course of the week, I had plenty of leftovers to tide me and Patrick over while I was at the ceramics studio every night this week except last night when David, the pottery studio owner had foraged 3 large chanterelle mushrooms earlier in the day, showing me pictures on his phone of leaf litter he had pushed aside to find the fungi at the base of pine trees. I asked if I could taste a piece of one, and he instead gave me the whole mushroom. I washed off the dirt under running water and with a toothbrush.

And then I laid the mushroom on a paper towel overnight. On the next night, I shredded the mushroom and then laid the chanterelle onto my cast iron on medium heat to dry sauté. Within a couple minutes, water seeped out from the mushroom.

 

After 6 minutes or so, enough water had evaporated from the mushrooms because the pan was dry at which I then added a chopped shallot and garlic and a few knobs of butter. I also got my pappardelle boiling for 7 minutes.

 

Next I added salt and heavy whipping cream and the boiled pasta. I had reserved pasta water in case the mixture got too dry....

 

....and yes, I did have to put in a large spoonful or two of pasta water to keep the pasta loose and sprinkled grated Asiago and chopped parsley. Lastly I tossed it all together and served. Oh my! Delicious.

 

Patrick wouldn't eat my dish, saying that the mushroom had looked like a toadstool even though he Googled and even inserted its picture into ChatGPT, which confirmed it was a chanterelle. Insert eye roll. And for dessert, I ate tangerines a colleague gave me from her tree.

Oh my gosh, the citrus is so wonderful at this time of year. So tiny and tart and sweet. Nature's candy. Like tomatoes, I'll miss these cuties when the tangerines go out of season.