Recipe | Mushroom & blue cheese gigli pasta

— Recipe by Chloe Hood

Mushrooms and blue cheese are two of my favourite foods, and it felt right to marry them up here. The mushrooms are flavoured with shallot, garlic and basil and come together in a white wine, cream and blue cheese sauce that clings to all the frills of the gigli pasta!

—

Serves 4

25 mins

Veg

Ingredients

10g (1/2oz) dried mushrooms

1 shallot, finely chopped

300g (10 1/2oz) wild mushrooms, torn

2 garlic cloves, crushed

10g (1 1/2oz) basil, stalks finely chopped and leaves picked, plus extra to serve

100ml (scant 1/2 cup) white wine

320g (11oz) gigli

200ml (scant 1 cup) single (pure) cream

60g (2oz) blue cheese (for example, Stilton or Saint Agur)

10g (1/2oz) Parmesan, finely grated (shredded)

Juice of 1/2 lemon

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

— 

Method

Cover the dried mushrooms in 100ml (scant 1/2 cup) boiling water to rehydrate.

Over a low–medium heat, sweat the shallot in a frying pan for 5 minutes until softened and translucent. Add the wild mushrooms, increase the heat, and fry for a further 5–8 minutes to caramelise. Add the garlic and basil stalks to the mushrooms. Fry for a few minutes until fragrant.

Chop the rehydrated mushrooms, reserving the mushroom stock. Add them to the pan and fry for a couple more minutes.

Deglaze the pan with the white wine and mushroom stock. Let it bubble rapidly until almost evaporated. Meanwhile, cook your pasta until al dente. Reserve a cup of the starchy pasta water.

Back to the sauce, pour in the cream, add the blue cheese, Parmesan, basil leaves, lemon juice, and plenty of black pepper. Stir and allow the cheese to melt into the sauce. Bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer as the pasta finishes cooking. Taste and adjust the seasoning.

Transfer the gigli and some of the starchy pasta water to the sauce. Toss everything together until the creamy, glossy sauce coats the pasta and hugs into all its frills!

Serve with extra basil.

— 

Other recipes from Pasta for the People — 

Brothy veg & rigatoni

Broccoli, garlic & chilli radiatori