Adventures in pasta-making: Papardelle con Funghi

I absolutely love that I don’t need to have a stash of dried pasta lying around the house for those impulsive carb-fests.

With my Imperia pasta roller, I can make my own pasta any time, as long as I have flour and eggs.

And now that I have finally gotten my mitts on some 100% durum semolina flour, I will be experimenting more and more.

This recipe was not made with semolina, just with regular all-purpose flour. I mistakenly thought that the “durum atta” flour I found at my local grocery store would be comparable to semolina, but I was gravely wrong.

Unfortunately I wasted 3 perfectly good eggs before I realized durum atta flour would definitely NOT make a good pasta dough. Now I’m going to have to come up with an occasion to make chapatti or roti. Nevertheless, I started over with my tried and true all-purpose recipe. I got the semolina at the market the next day and have not yet tried it out.

I am new to the whole dried mushroom world, but so far, I love the scene. I had a few packages in my pantry, and when I caught an episode of Top Chef Canada in which the winning dish was papardelle con funghi, I knew I would have to make it.

Papardelle is like a really wide and long version of linguine. Since my pasta roller doesn’t have a super-wide noodle cutting attachment, I had to fold the long sheets of flat pasta into four layers and cut the noodles with a knife.

I thought I was so crafty by arranging a wooden dowel across two chairs backs to hang the pasta until it was ready to be cooked.

One dangerously close walk-by of my furry-tailed friend, however, was enough for me to hang the noodles at a higher altitude. Still, hanging from the cupboards, it was not completely safe as I kept absentmindedly closing the doors and nearly toppling my makeshift noodle rack.

I left the noodles at their full length of about 1 metre, just for fun.

This recipe is so very simple. Just perfectly cooked fresh pasta and dried mushrooms with their soaking liquid. Some parmesan cheese, a touch of fresh parsely and garlic. Mwah! Perfecto.

I had a tiny bit of mascarpone cheese in the fridge that needed to be used up, so I threw that in too. One must never let mascarpone go to waste. And what’s better than mushrooms sauteed in butter? Why, mushrooms sauteed in truffle oil, my dear Watson.

The extra long noodles made for some entertaining eating techniques at the dinner table.

This will definitely be a staple in the Soph n’ Stuff kitchen.

Stay tuned for more adventures in pasta-making, when I finally try semolina flour! And maybe I will even attempt to make *gulp* …penne!

Here’s the recipe!