Pappardelle
fra Porcino
Wide ribbon pasta with porcini, built up with tomato and meat sauce
Porcini softened in garlic and oil, then given body with sweet cherry tomatoes and a spoonful of meat sauce or concentrate, finished with parsley over wide pappardelle. A richer, more built-up relative of the plainer maccheroni ai funghi, and another one that appeared often once autumn brought good mushrooms home.
Where maccheroni ai funghi keeps things plain — garlic, oil, wine, broth — this version builds the sauce further, with sweet cherry tomatoes cooked down until they thicken and a spoonful of meat sauce or concentrate stirred in for depth. The result is a rounder, more substantial sauce than the plainer version, closer to something you would want under a wide, rustic pasta like pappardelle, which can carry the extra body without disappearing under it.
This was another autumn regular — the season when good porcini were worth building a proper sauce around rather than just sautéing quickly. The meat sauce addition is the kind of thing that gets folded in almost as an afterthought, a spoonful from whatever ragù or sauce meat happened to be on hand, which is often how these dishes actually come together in a real kitchen rather than a recipe book.
Sweet cherry tomatoes and a spoonful of meat sauce turn the plain mushroom sauté into something with real body — the kind of addition that comes from whatever was already in the pot, not from a recipe.
The recipe
For six.
Pappardelle ai Porcini — mushrooms, cherry tomatoes, and ragù. Click to enlarge.
600 gPappardelle
400 g, cleaned and slicedPorcini mushrooms
150 gCherry tomatoes, halved
1 cloveGarlic
3 tbspExtra virgin olive oil
A spoonfulMeat sauce, or meat extract/concentrate
100 g, gratedParmigiano
A handful, choppedFresh parsley
To tasteSalt and black pepper
1
Clean the mushrooms with a damp cloth and slice them. If dried porcini are used instead, soak them in warm water first and reserve the soaking liquid.
2
Warm the olive oil with the whole garlic clove until fragrant, then remove the garlic. Add the mushrooms and sauté until they release their water and begin to color.
3
Add the cherry tomatoes and let the sauce come together, adding the meat sauce or concentrate to deepen it. Season with salt and pepper and cook until the mushrooms are fully tender.
4
Cook the pappardelle, drain, and toss through the sauce, finishing with a generous scattering of parsley.
5
Serve with grated Parmigiano at the table.
Related
Maccheroni ai Funghi
The plainer version this one builds on — no tomato, no meat sauce. See
the full recipe.
Pasta Salsiccia e Funghi (o Melanzane)
The same mushroom-and-autumn instinct, this time with sausage. See
the full recipe.
Tagliatelle alla Boscaiola
Another richer mushroom pasta, this one built on sausage and cream instead of tomato and meat sauce. See
the full recipe.
Buon appetito.
