Mushroom Bolognese

When one thinks of a Bolognese, it is a sauce made with onions, celery, tomatoes and cheese, with meat.  Beef, pork or lamb.  One never thinks of a vegetarian Bolognese and a vegan Bolognese gives me the shivers.  A true Bolognese has been on my short list of dishes to make.  However, because Clare does not eat beef, pork or lamb, that dish has to wait for a night when I am only cooking for myself.  

In the meantime, I decided that I would make a Bolognese recipe that Clare would eat.  I found a recipe by Sarah Grueneberg, a Top Chef contestant, which provided a good starting point.  The one thing that caught my attention was the use of a variety of ingredients at the outset ... not just onions, carrots and celery (which are usually found in Bolognese sauces), but also parsnips and turnips.   Grueneberg's recipe also calls for the use of dried porcini mushrooms and king oyster mushrooms.  The latter mushrooms are chopped with the vegetable mixture, while the former provide the "meat" in the dish.

I decided to alter the dish in a few ways.  First, there was the mushrooms.  Rather than use porcini and king oyster mushrooms, I used a combination of portobello, oyster and shiitake mushrooms.  I decided to use half with the vegetable mixture and keep half sliced to serve with the pasta.  The substitution of these mushrooms for the porcini created another issue.  This led to the second substitution.  Grueneberg relied upon the water from rehydrating the porcini for the sauce.  I needed something in place of that liquid.  This was not really a problem at all.  I used about 1 cup of vegetable stock in place of the porcini water.

The third substitution involves the pasta.  Grueneberg uses spaghetti in her recipe.  When it comes to a Bolognese, I think that a flat pasta is better, because it shows off all of the elements in the sauce.   Fettuccine would work well with this recipe; however, if you can find pappardelle, that is the pasta of choice.  Its wide flat noodles provide the most space for the Bolognese sauce to cling to the pasta. 

Finally, the recipe calls for the use of 1/2 cup of wine.  Given that I was making a Bolognese sauce, a wine from Emilia-Romagna -- the region where Bologna is located -- would have been the ideal choice.  I could not put my hands on a non-sparking wine from the region, such as a Sangiovese di Romagna.  So, I went with a Sangiovese wine that is a lot easier to find ... a Chianti Classico from Tuscany.

MUSHROOM BOLOGNESE

Adapted from a recipe by Sarah Grueneberg 

and available at Food & Wine
and some other recipes

Ingredients:
1 small onion, coarsely chopped
1 medium carrot, coarsely chopped
1 celery rib, coarsely chopped
1 medium parsnip, chopped
1/2 small turnip, chopped
3 ounces of shiitake mushrooms, sliced
4 ounces of portobello mushrooms, sliced
3 ounces of oyster mushrooms, sliced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup dry red wine (preferably Sangiovese)
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan
Pinch of crushed red pepper
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 teaspoon minced rosemary
1 1/2 pounds of pappardelle (or fettuccine)
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter

Directions:

1. Prepare the vegetable base.  Pulse the onion, carrot, celery, parsnip, turnip and one-half of the mushrooms in a food processor until finely chopped  In a large pot, heat the oil.  Add the vegetables, season with salt and pepper and cook over moderate heat until softened, about 20 minutes. 

2. Make the Bolognese sauce.  Add the sliced mushrooms and cook until fragrant, about 5 to 10 minutes.  Add the wine and red pepper, and cook until the wine evaporates.  Add the vegetable stock, cover partially and cook over low heat, stirring until thick, about another 25 minutes.  Add the cream, rosemary and 1/4 cup of grated cheese and simmer for 5 minutes. 

3. Cook the pasta.  Heat a pot with salted water until it boils.  Add the pasta and cook according to the directions on the package.  (Generally, dried pasta takes several minutes while fresh pasta only takes about 1 to 2 minutes.)

4.  Finish the dish.  Add the warm pasta, butter and 1 cup of water to the sauce and toss, stirring until the pasta is well coated.  Serve immediately.

ENJOY!

Pappardelle with Spicy Lamb Ragu

For a couple of years, I went to wine tastings with Clare at the National Geographic Society.  At these tastings, Joshua Wesson (the founder of Best Cellars) introduced the audience to an array of different wines and, in the process, offer advice on pairing those wines with food.  I really enjoyed those tastings and, at one of them, I bought Josh's cookbook, Wine & Food: A New Look at Flavor.  This cookbook is a great read, especially for someone like myself ... who knows little about wine pairing but is eager to learn.  It contains over fifty recipes and, just like the wine tastings, Joshua provides wine pairing suggestions for each one. 

I have read Joshua's book a few times, trying to absorb as much as I can about wine tasting and pairing.  I have always wanted to make some of the recipes from the book and pair them to the wines that Josh recommends.  One particular recipe is the Pappardelle with Spicy Lamb Ragu.  This dish draws its inspiration from Bolognese-style sauce.  Recently, I purchased a package of pappardelle from a local store with the specific intent of making this recipe.  However, I have been very busy at work lately and I kept putting off making this dish.  The package of pappardelle sat in our pantry for days and then weeks. 

After one particularly long and hard day at work, I decided that I would make the Pappardelle with Spicy Lamb Ragu.  My decision was definitely worth it. I followed the recipe with one exception.  I substituted unsalted beef stock for beef broth.  I made this substitution because I generally prefer using stock to broth, and, when a recipe calls for broth, I almost invariably substitute stock.  The dish still turned out very well and, as exhausted as I was, I enjoyed a great meal  ... and two great lunches thereafter. 

PAPPARDELLE WITH SPICY LAMB RAGU

Recipe from Joshua Wesson, Wine & Food, A New Look at Flavor, page 129

Serves 4

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

1 pound of ground lamb

1 yellow onion, minced

1 cup finely chopped fresh cremini mushrooms

1/4 teaspoon of crushed red pepper, or to taste

3 cloves of garlic, minced

1 3/4 cups of reduced sodium beef broth

1/4 cup dry red wine

1 cup tomato sauce

3 tablespoons tomato paste

1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar

2 small fresh rosemary or thyme sprigs

Kosher salt

Freshly ground black pepper

3/4 pound dried pappardelle

1/4 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese,

     plus more for serving

1/4 cup chopped fresh flat leaf parsley

Directions:

1.  Brown the lamb.  In a non-stick frying pan large enough to hold the sauce and the pasta, heat the oil over high heat.  Add the lamb and saute, stirring to break up any clumps, until lightly browned, about 8 minutes.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer the lamb to a plate.

2.  Saute the vegetables.  Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the fat from the pan and return the pan to medium heat.  Add the onion, mushrooms, and red pepper flakes and saute until the mushrooms have released their moisture and the onion is translucent and soft, about 5-7 minutes.  Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until fragrant, about 1 minute. 

3.  Finish the sauce.  Return the lamb to the pan and add the broth, 1/2 cup of water, the wine, tomato sauce, tomato paste and rosemary.  Bring to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer gently, uncovered until the sauce has thickened slightly, 25-30 minutes.  Add the vinegar and cook for 1 minute longer.  Taste and season with salt and pepper.  Keep warm over low heat.

4.  Cook the pasta.  About 15 minutes before the sauce is ready, bring a large pot three-fourths full of salted water to a boil.  Add the pappardelle and cook until al dente, 8 to 10 minutes or according to the package directions.   

5.  Finish the dish. Raise the heat under the sauce to medium.  Drain the pasta, add it to the sauce, and toss and stir to combine.  Add the 1/4 cup of Parmesan, the parsley and again toss to combine. 

6.  Plate the dish.  Divide the pasta among warmed shallow bowls and serve right away.  Pass additional Parmesan at the table. 

PAIRING THIS RECIPE

As I  mentioned at the outset of this post, the great thing about Joshua's book is that he offers pairing suggestions for each of the recipes.  The suggestions include New World wines, Old World wines, and alternative pairings.  For this recipe, the "New World" match was a Sangiovese wine from the Mendoza region of Argentina.  The "Old World" pairing was a northern Italian Barbara wine.  The "alternative pairing" was a Californian Blanc de Noirs or a Sangiovese Rose.  Of all these suggestions, I was able to find a Barbera d'Asti, which comes from the northern Italian region of Piedmont:

Crivelli -- Collina La Mora Barbera D'Asti (2009)
100% Barbera
D'Asti, Piedmont, Italy
Flavors of cherries and raspberries with faint hint of spice

According to Josh, a Barbera wine has the natural acidity to match with the tomato in the sauce and to balance the richness of the ground lamb.  He was right.  The Barbera worked perfectly with this dish. 

ENJOY!