Pappardelle with mushrooms

Method

1. Clean the mushrooms with a dry brush or rinse briefly and pat dry at once; slice them about 5 mm thick. Thinly slice the garlic and chop the parsley.
2. Heat the oil in a large frying pan and fry the mushrooms over high heat in two batches. Do not stir at first; they release water and only start to brown once it has evaporated. Fry each batch for 8–10 minutes until golden.
   TipMushroomsIn the pan a mushroom acts like a kitchen sponge: first it lets go of its water, and only then does it bother turning golden.Why and howShow less

   Why

   Fresh mushrooms are mostly water, button mushrooms about 90 %, and they release it into the pan as they heat; so they first stew in their own juice and brown only once the water has evaporated. An overcrowded pan or fat that isn't hot enough only prolongs this stage, and salt added at the start draws the water out sooner; mushrooms taken off the heat before the juice has evaporated end up grey and rubbery. Wild mushrooms are not eaten raw, even edible species often cause digestive upsets when raw, and dishes made from them should therefore be cooked for at least 15 minutes. The widespread claim that mushroom dishes must never be reheated is only half true: problems come mainly from badly stored mushrooms and dishes, whereas a dish cooled quickly and kept briefly in the fridge can be reheated once. Only gather and eat mushrooms you can identify with certainty; phone apps often cannot identify a species unambiguously.

   How to do it

   1. Clean mushrooms with a knife or brush, rinse dirty ones only briefly and dry them at once; never leave them sitting in water.
   2. If you want them browned, heat a pan with fat and fry them in batches in a single layer; for a sauce or soup, softening them is enough.
   3. Let fried mushrooms evaporate their juice and brown; you can salt them at any point, salt at the start only speeds up the release of water.
   4. Never eat wild mushrooms raw, and cook dishes made from them for at least 15 minutes.
   5. Cool leftover mushroom dishes quickly, refrigerate them (ideally at 2–4 °C), use them up soon and reheat only once, until piping hot throughout, to at least 74 °C in the centre.
   6. Gather and cook only mushrooms you know with certainty; have uncertain finds checked at a mushroom advice centre, not by an app.

   If it goes wrong

   Leave watery mushrooms in the pan uncovered until the juice has evaporated, then brown them; you can also pour the juice off into a sauce. To get rid of grit from dried mushrooms, strain the soaking water through a fine sieve or a paper filter. If nausea, vomiting or diarrhoea appear after a mushroom meal, call a doctor, the emergency services or a poison information centre, even if the symptoms start many hours after eating – the most dangerous poisonings often have a late onset. Keep any leftover mushrooms and food for identification.

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3. Return all the mushrooms to the pan, lower the heat to medium, add the butter and garlic and cook for a minute, just until the garlic smells fragrant; it must not brown. Season with salt and pepper and take the pan off the heat.
   TipGarlic in the panGarlic has two speeds: fragrant, fragrant, fragrant – and one second later, bitter as regret.Why and howShow less

   Why

   A whole garlic clove barely smells of anything: the compound alliin and the enzyme alliinase are stored separately in its cells and only meet when the garlic is cut or crushed, quickly forming pungent allicin and, from it, other sulphur aroma compounds. The finer you chop or crush it, the more cells break and the sharper the flavour; heat destroys the enzyme, which is why whole roasted cloves taste mild and sweetish. Chopped garlic sits in the pan as tiny pieces with relatively little water and plenty of sugars, so in hot fat it turns golden within tens of seconds and just moments later goes brown and bitter. That's why it goes into hot fat after the onion or towards the end, or is warmed slowly from cold oil.

   How to do it

   1. Add garlic only once the onion has softened or everything else is nearly done; half a minute to a minute is usually enough.
   2. Stir, and take the pan off the heat as soon as the garlic smells fragrant and turns pale gold.
   3. For a gentle aroma, warm crushed cloves slowly in cold oil and use it at once; never keep garlic in oil at room temperature (botulism risk), and no more than 4 days in the fridge.
   4. For a bold, sharp flavour, press or grate the garlic; for a milder one, slice it.
   5. In long-cooked dishes, save some garlic for the end, as long simmering mutes its aroma.

   If it goes wrong

   Burnt garlic can't be saved and its bitterness spreads through all the fat: pour it out, wipe the pan and start again – it only takes a minute. Next time add the garlic later and over lower heat.

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4. Bring 3 litres of water with 20 g of salt to the boil, add the dried egg pappardelle and cook them al dente according to the packet, usually 7–9 minutes. Fresh homemade pappardelle (Fresh egg pasta recipe) need only 3–4 minutes. Before draining, set aside 100 ml of the cooking water and drain the rest.
   TipCooking pastaPasta water isn't waste, it's liquid glue that talks the sauce into clinging to the pasta.Why and howShow less

   Why

   In the first minutes of boiling, starch is released from the surface of the pasta and it turns sticky; plenty of rapidly boiling water and a stir at that point stop it clumping, and the water doesn't cool down as much when the pasta goes in. Salt only gets into pasta while it cooks, which is why the water is salted generously, roughly 10 g per litre; that amount has a negligible effect on the boiling point, and oil in the water is pointless because it floats on top and doesn't prevent sticking. The cooking water is full of dissolved starch that thickens the sauce and helps its fat combine with water into a smooth emulsion that clings to the pasta. That is why pasta isn't rinsed after draining – you would wash off the starch the sauce holds on to and cool the pasta down; the only exception is pasta for a cold salad.

   How to do it

   1. Allow roughly a litre of water per 100 g of pasta and add about 10 g of salt per litre once it boils.
   2. Drop the pasta into rapidly boiling water and stir now and then for the first two minutes.
   3. Don't add oil to the water; it won't stop sticking.
   4. Cook a minute or two less than the packet says and keep tasting.
   5. Before draining, scoop out a mugful of the cooking water.
   6. Don't rinse the pasta; transfer it straight into the sauce and finish cooking it there with a little of the cooking water.

   If it goes wrong

   Loosen pasta that has stuck together in the sauce with a little hot cooking water, or dip it briefly in boiling water and stir. Overcooked pasta won't firm up again – bake it or add it to a soup, and next time start tasting earlier. Under-salted pasta can only be rescued by a well-seasoned sauce.

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5. Transfer the pasta to the pan with the mushrooms, add the reserved water and half of the Parmesan and toss over low heat for 1–2 minutes until a glossy, creamy sauce forms. Stir in the parsley and serve with the remaining Parmesan.