Pasta With Portobello Mushrooms

By Mark Bittman

Pasta With Portobello Mushrooms
Andrew Scrivani for The New York Times
Total Time
About 1 hour
Rating
5(1,250)
Comments
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The key to giving a portobello (or any mushroom) dense texture is to cook it slowly in oil so that most of its moisture is driven out. My biggest successes came in taking whole mushrooms and cooking them, covered, for as long as two hours. Nearly as good, however, and more than twice as fast, is to cut up the mushrooms and cook them in oil, uncovered, for 30 to 45 minutes. At that point, you not only have fabulous mushrooms, which you can use in a pasta sauce, as I do here, or to top salads or stir into rice dishes, but you also have very good-flavored oil. To further improve the mushrooms' flavor, I like to use the trick popularized by Marcella Hazan: add a few reconstituted dried porcini to the portobellos.

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings
  • 8ounces portobello mushrooms
  • 3cloves garlic
  • 2 or 3thyme sprigs
  • ½cup extra virgin olive oil
  • Salt and pepper to taste
  • ¼cup dried porcini mushrooms, optional
  • 3cups tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped (canned are fine)
  • 1pound penne or other cut pasta
  • Freshly grated Parmesan cheese
Ingredient Substitution Guide
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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Trim hard parts from mushrooms and discard. Rinse mushrooms quickly to remove grit; cut caps into slices and stems into small chunks. Combine in a medium skillet with 1 clove garlic (crushed and peeled), thyme, olive oil and some salt and pepper. Cook over sufficiently low heat so that mixture bubbles but mushrooms do not brown. Continue to cook, stirring infrequently, until they are quite shrunken in size and appear firm, 30 to 45 minutes. (At this point, you can pause for several hours before resuming cooking.) If you are using porcinis, soak them in hot water to cover for a few minutes so that they soften.

  2. Step 2

    Set a large pot of water to boil for pasta and salt it. Mince remaining garlic. Turn heat under oil to medium, and add garlic to the portobellos along with the drained porcinis. Cook, stirring occasionally, until garlic begins to color. Add tomatoes and raise heat to medium high. Cook, stirring occasionally, until they break up and become saucy, about 15 minutes.

  3. Step 3

    Meanwhile, cook pasta until it is tender but not mushy. Taste sauce and adjust its seasoning. When pasta is done, drain it, toss with sauce, top with Parmesan, and serve.

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5 out of 5
1,250 user ratings
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Comments

Alice

Cooking mushrooms like this will transform even dried out mushrooms that you've forgotten in the fridge drawer. You can then freeze them for other recipes. (Be sure to store your uncooked mushrooms in a paper bag, not plastic.)

WinnieH

Made this last night for two. Followed the recipe as written but used just 12 oz. pasta. I didn't measure the olive oil, just eyeballed what seemed like the right amount. Delicious. Plenty of leftovers. Delicious and easy. I added the soaking water from the porcinis to the pasta water as another commenter suggested. She was right. Imparted a smoky flavor to the pasta. Will make it again.

Anna

Have you ever tried a site/app like myfitnesspal? (not a plug for that one specifically, there are many like it). You can link the app to the recipe and it makes a calculation. In this case, it calculated just shy of 800 calories, which, let's face it is really high, because it's counting that you'll eat all the oil. But pour some off or use less, it would be fewer.

Cheryl

I don't like thyme what other herb do you suggest for this dish.

REM

It was tasty served over rigatoni. It strikes me that it would be truly delicious served over polenta. Think I will give it a go with polenta next time.

Mr Bean

There’s a technique that I don’t know, and is not mentioned, that keeps these mushrooms from absorbing all the oil and, before they turn “firm,” in only 35 minutes, at the lowest possible temperature, keeps them from becoming blackened into carbonized lumps.

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