A simple chanterelle pasta with a light garlic-wine sauce is one of my favorite wild mushroom pastas. Some of my favorite recipes are those from my chef friends, either restaurant staples, or things that they make at home, and I keep track of them whenever I can remember. This one was from my old boss, Chef Andy Lilja.
This is a quick chanterelle dinner he threw together one evening, the sort of thing where you don't measure and just cook by feel.
I took down notes as he told me what he did, stomach growling the whole time, and I have to tell you, it's one of the best chanterelle mushroom pasta recipes I've had. Andy was always fiendishly creative with pasta.
Tips
It's really just a simple mushroom pasta, well, it's chanterelle spaghetti with roasted garlic wine sauce and herbs to be exact, but there's a couple things worth noting.
Washing the mushrooms
Rinsing the chanterelles before cooking while you're cleaning adds water to them, that will come out and help make a delicious pan sauce combined with the roasted garlic paste, without using a drop of cream, which helps keep it light.
It might seem counter-intuitive to expose mushrooms to water, but, trust me, there's a few old French recipes that call for chanterelles specifically to be soaked, and, while I don't soak them here, you get the same effect.
Herbs
Second, using a mix of fresh herbs was something Andy insisted on, preferably you're making this during the growing season, and using a combo of different soft, tender herbs like basil, parsley chives, tarragon, oregano, etc. Use a mix of fresh herbs for the best result.
Cheese
Lastly, use some good cheese, and an onion of your choice. Andy and I both love pecorino, Italo-philes that we are, but some decent parmigiano would be good too. If, however, all you have is that Kraft powder in the green jar though, do yourself a favor, throw that away and buy some real cheese.
Onions
The onion component can be a few different things here. Andy used small pearl onions from the local farmers market, I opted for shallots since the onions at the market were gone, so feel free to use what's available as far as your alliums go: green garlic, leeks, ramps, etc will all be good, just use something.
Chanterelle Pasta with Roasted Garlic Wine Sauce
Equipment
- 1 10 inch saute pan
- 1 Pasta pot
Ingredients
- 4 oz dried spaghetti or linguine
- 1 large bulb of garlic
- Fresh garden herbs to taste, preferably a mix of basil, fresh parsley, thyme, or sage, all chopped together
- ¼ cup white wine
- ¼ cup chicken stock
- 1 large shallot 3oz, julienned
- Pinch of crushed red pepper flakes
- 4-6 oz fresh chanterelles depending on availability roughly chopped, small buttons left whole
- 3 tablespoons Grated pecorino cheese or parmesan or to taste
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste
Instructions
Roast the garlic
- Peel the skin off the garlic. Cut the stem end off the bulb of garlic to reveal the cloves and make them easier to press out.
- Wrap the bulb of garlic in foil, then bake at 350 for 20 minutes, turn off the oven and allow them to continue cooking with the residual heat until cool.
- The cloves of garlic should be soft and supple. Squeeze out the garlic, mash to a paste and reserve. From here the garlic can be prepared ahead of time.
Chanterelles and pasta
- Rinse the chanterelles under cold water to clean them and allow them to soak up moisture (counter-intuitive but actually a good technique for them).
- Warm the chanterelles in a dry pan with the shallots, cooking until the chanterelles have given up their juice and are wilted. Add the olive oil, roasted garlic paste and crushed red pepper flakes and cook for a minute more.
- Add the wine and cook down by half, then add the chicken stock. Meanwhile, cook the pasta in salted boiling water until al dente, then add to the pan along with the butter and herbs and cook for a minute to reduce, toss to combine and coat the noodles with the sauce.
- Add a splash of pasta cooking water if the pan gets dry.
- Remove the pan from the heat and add half of the cheese. Double check the seasoning for salt and pepper, adjust as needed, then pull the pasta out of the pan with tongs. Twirl the noodles into two warmed pasta bowls. spoon the mushrooms and juices over them, garnish with pecorino or parmesan cheese and serve.
Bob
Foraged a few lbs of chanterelles yesterday, along with a few golden oysters and a tiny lactifluus volemus. A quick search for a recipe gave me yours as the first hit. No need to look at the others. Made it tonight for dinner. Used a mix of chants, oysters and the lactifluus. Outstanding dish.
Alan Bergo
Glad it worked for you.
Tony
In September, I picked 6-7 pounds of Craterellus tubaeformis in a bog up in the MN arrowhead. I dried most of them, but used some to make this recipe using fresh fettuccine. We loved it! We've since made it three more times, with rehydrated yellowfoots. It's simple but flavorful, yet it really lets the mushrooms shine through. Wonderful! In the spring I'd like to try it with morels, substituting ramps for the alliums. Thanks!
Alan Bergo
Hey Tony, I just love that pasta. And good on you harvesting those yellowfeet-a lot of hunters in MN overlook them because they're small. They pack a great flavor though. Also, our local, small version is C. ignicolor. C. tubaeformis is the West Coast species that's much bigger. All of them are good though!
Tony
Alan,
C. ignicolor grows in wet hardwood forests, but in the black spruce bogs of northern MN, we also have C. tubaeformis. And unlike their smaller cousins, they are very abundant in the right habitat. It's something people from the Cities don't seem to know about. I'd be happy to send you some photos, if you don't believe it!
Alan Bergo
Well that's news to me! I'd love to see. Shoot me an email, I'll have to update a few things here. alanbergo3@gmail.com
Travis
Made this using fresh foraged chanterelles with a few others we found, like porcini and honey mushrooms. The chanterelles released a lot of liquid. For this reason I boiled my cascatelli pasta for just five minutes (15-18 recommended) and then finished it in the mushroom mixture so that the pasta would absorb the excess liquid and absorb extra flavors. This was very simple and very delicious. The hardest part was cleaning the mushrooms.
Alan Bergo
Yes, cleaning mushrooms can be tedious. That's why it's so important to clean them as you pick in the field. I'm cleaning 10 lbs of Saskatchewan chanterelle buttons today from a commercial purveyor-not my cup of tea.
Jordan Jacobs
Wow. I made this recipe, had to add more wine and chicken stock as I realized I put way more than 6oz of craterellus fallax and cantharellus lateritius, I added lemon per recommendation of a good chef friend, olive oil instead of butter to showcase the mushroom flavor, and pasta water to thicken the sauce a bit. I had all the girls saying wow! Cheers and thank you!
Alan Bergo
Glad it worked for you, yeah if you want to add more just adjust it, recipes are just a template. Jealous that you have C. lateritius down there!
Dawna Goodwin
Oh so delish!! Served with homemade pappardelle. It was all I could not to lick the plate!
Alan Bergo
Glad it worked for you Dawna.
Tim Jones
I live in Northern Ontario. Made this tonite with chanterelles picked a few metres from kitchen door of our camp, herbs we grew ourselves, and fresh garlic from down the road. Used capellini. Absolutely wonderful meal. Thanks much.
Alan Bergo
Hey thanks Tim. I really like this as it's a great break from creamy pastas. Nice and light for summer, and perfect for capellini too! If you have any extra capellini, you have to try my capellini alla checca in the future.
John M
This was exquisite. All the flavors melded perfectly, i made some fresh bigoli pasta and I tell you, this recipe is just fantastic in every way.
Alan Bergo
Homemade bigoli even? Sounds great.
Ron3
I didn’t have time to roast the garlic cloves so instead I dry roasted them on cast iron before cooking the mushrooms then ran them through a garlic press, worked great. This was an incredible recipe! I’m finicky about mushrooms, but there were no leftovers this night. My girlfriend loved it too.
Alan Bergo
Glad it worked for you.