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Ingredients
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- 2/3 pound (300 g) fresh porcini or other wild mushrooms
- 1/4 pound (100 g) pancetta, thinly sliced and then cut crosswise
- Half a medium onion, minced
- 1 mozzarella (a ball about 2 inches in diameter), sliced thinly
- 1-2 thin slices cooked ham, shredded
- Grated pecorino
- Tomato sauce to taste
- Olive oil
- Salt
- 1 pound (400 g) orecchiette
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Charatteristics
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Serving
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FIRST
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Preparation yime
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40 min
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Difficulty
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Easy
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Serves
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4
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Region
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Puglia
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A tasty Puglian sauce that calls for
porcini, but orecchiette con i funghi can be made with other wild mushrooms as well. It won't work well
with champignons, because they aren't mushroomy enough. The recipe, an
interesting variation on baked pasta, is drawn from Luigi Sada's La Cucina
Pugliese and will serve 4:
How to make the orecchiette con i funghi (orecchiette
with mushrooms): clean the
mushrooms, washing them if need be, dice them, and sauté them with the
pancetta and the onion. After a few minutes add tomato sauce (I wouldn't add
more than a half cup) a little water, a pinch of salt, and simmer until you
obtain a thick sauce.
While the
sauce is cooking cook the pasta until half done in abundant lightly salted
water. Drain it well, and preheat your oven to 360 f (180 C). Spread a thin
layer of the mushroom sauce over the bottom of a heat-proof dish, then a layer
of pasta, then one of mozzarella and ham, another of orecchiette, and the
remaining sauce. Dust well with grated cheese, and bake for 20 minutes.
Serve
the orecchiette con i funghi hot with a fairly full bodied white wine: Soave would be nice, as would be Vernaccia.
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