Truffle and Mushroom Carbonara
 
Serves 4
 
Ingredients
 
1 Garlic clove, crushed
2 tbsp Extra virgin olive oil
250g Chestnut brown mushrooms, sliced
1 tsp Sea salt flakes
1 tbsp Chopped fresh rosemary
1 tsp Chopped fresh thyme
70g Salted butter
70g Finely grated parmesan cheese
400g Dried tagliatelle or spaghetti if you prefer
1 tbsp Salt for cooking the pasta in
3 egg yolks (freeze the whites and save for when you want to make a pavlova)
 
Here’s how:
 
Fill a large saucepan with water and salt, and bring up to the boil.
Meanwhile, pre heat a large shallow frying pan and add the oil and garlic.
Scatter the sliced mushrooms into the pan and season with salt.
It’s important to get the salt in as this will draw out the moisture from the mushrooms and improve the flavour and texture.
As the mushrooms heat up they will release liquid, you need to continue to cook them to evaporated that liquid. By doing this you will get great flavour, nice texture and most important no soggy mushrooms. It should take 5-6 minutes.
Meanwhile, place the pasta into the boiling water and cook for 9 minutes.
Sprinkle in the rosemary and thyme in with the mushrooms and stir together.
Add the butter. As it melts it will bring all the flavours together.
Using a ladle lift out a spoonful of the cooking water from the pasta pan and add to the frying pan.
Stir together to create an emulsion. Taking a fat like oil or butter, combining with water and boiling them together creates a silky sauce.
Once the pasta has cooked for 9 minutes, use a pair of tongs and lift out of the boiling water straight into the mushroom pan.
Turn the heat off and stir in the grated parmesan cheese.
Finally, add the egg yolks and stir together.
Serve up the pasta and top with shavings of fresh truffle.
If you can’t get hold of fresh truffle try using truffle oil instead.
 
Recipe by Peter Sidwell