Pasta with Mushrooms, Pumpkin & Truffle Recipe
Servings: 4 servings
Ingredients
For the Strozzapreti
- 1¼ cups all purpose flour sifted
- ½ cup mineral water not sparkling!
- 1 pinch salt
For The Sauce
- 1 cup fresh porcini mushrooms
- 1 cup fresh pumpkin pulp diced
- 1 small black truffle if you can get your hands on the delicate white Alba variety, even better
- 1 sprig fresh sage
- 7 ounces whole milk
- ¼ cup butter
- salt & pepper to taste
Instructions
For the Strozzapreti
- Sift the flour in a large mixing bowl, add the salt and water and knead the dough until a thick lumpless ball forms, this should take no longer than 6 minutes, as over kneading will make the dough excessively hard.
- Divvy up the dough in apricot-size balls and separate them on your work surface (preferably wooden) dusted with more flour.
- You can now proceed to shaping it into your strozzapreti. Roll the dough balls flat with a dusted rolling pin, to a ½ to ¾ inch thickness.
- Fold the flattened dough over like a burrito and cut ½ inch slices. Undo the strands and flour them too to avoid stickage.
- Now to obtain the typical strozzapreti shape, you have to take each individual strand and roll it between your palms. The result is a "˜rolled up towel' shape, one very suitable for virtually "grabbing" the sauce.
- Dust a kitchen towel with flour and rest the strozzapreti on it for about 30 minutes before cooking.
For the Sauce
- Clean the porcini by rubbing them gently with a damp cloth and chopping off the soiled part of the stems.
- Slice the larger ones and halve the smaller caps and stems.
- In a large enough skillet, sauté the pumpkin in butter and sage for 3 minutes, over vivacious heat.
- Add the milk, lower the heat and cook for 5 more minutes.
- Now add the chopped mushrooms, adjust seasoning and cook for 10 more minutes.
- In the meantime bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a rolling boil and cook the strozzapreti al dente (this will take a lot less time than regular dried pasta, so keep a close watch).
- Drain the pasta and transfer it to the warm skillet where the sauce is, and blend well off the burner.
- Dish out and then sliver the tartufo wafers directly in the individual plates.
- No Parmigiano this time, the tartufo would otherwise suffer.
Notes
A good wine for this cold weather extravaganza is a Colli del Trasimeno or any rosé that will allow the mixture of flavors to remain intact while sustaining the contrast between the pasta's tenacious nature and the sauce's velvety softness.
Buon appetito!