Mushroom Ragù

This is a great vegetarian sauce, very complex and satisfying, perfect as the weather chills. It’s excellent for pasta, baked in a lasagna or polenta pasticciata, cooked into risotto—or as a condiment for grilled steak or fish. The mushrooms you can buy at the supermarket will make a fine sauce—if you have fresh wild mushrooms it will be even better. In either case, dried porcini provide key elements for this sauce (and many others). Buon Appetito! #LidiasRecipes #LidiasItaly #LidiasKitchen #LidiaBastianich #ItalianFood #LidiasTheArtofPasta #lidiasoliveoil

Mushroom Ragu

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Raguongi. Tiny kitchen, big kitchen, but we want big flavors. And this is one of those simple ragoot preparations. Mushroom ragu. Lots of it. And we’ll begin with some onions. Let’s get the onions in there. Let’s put some olive oil. Let me put some butter in here. dough scraper just helps you so much collect everything you have on your cutting board. Here I have some shallots. Try to get the larger one. And usually, you know, the good thing is you cut it on one side and the other. Then you stabilize it like this in half. And then you go across. The onions take longer to cook than the shallots. The shallots cook quicker and they’re good because they disintegrate in the sauce and give you that really good oniony flavor into the sauce. Add a little bit of salt. And I’m going to cut the mushrooms for this ragu. Any mushroom. One kind of mushrooms will be fine, but if you can mix it up a little bit, the better the ragu will be. You have some oyster mushrooms here, which are beautiful. And the oyster mushroom usually are attached to a stem. And usually the stems are a little bit tough, so make sure that you cut that off. This is a delicious mushroom, a king trumpet mushroom. Very good. A little expensive, but very good. Absolutely. So, how would I cut this? Like this. Like this. Okay. Mushroom really cuts down. It’s a lot of water because that’s what mushrooms are. And they cook and retract, but that’s where the flavor is. When you cook them and the water comes out, the flavor really comes out. I’m going to put a little bit of salt to season it. And I’m going to put a little bit of stock here. I have chicken stock or whatever stock you have. If you don’t have stock, water is fine. And I’m going to let it slowly release the water. And I’m going to put a cover here so they cook out. And what am I going to add to the mushrooms? First of all, this sache. I have bay leaves, sage, I have rosemary, and I have thyme. So, a nice selection of different fresh herbs. And just you roll it, roll it, roll it. And you can just tie it in itself and throw it in. And as this kind of steeps and cooks and simmers, it will release its flavors through there. So, let’s put that in. Let me give it a mix. to add more mushroom flavor. Dry porchini. I couldn’t think of a kitchen without dry Italian kitchen that is without dry porchini. So you get the dry portorchini and you soak them in hot water or hot stock. You pull them out, kind of drain them a little bit just like that. And this will add a real punch of flavor to whatever you’re cooking. So, let’s add the mushrooms right in here. And I’m going to save this because I’m going to use that as well. So, I’m going to make a little hot spot. You know, I like my hot spot, especially for my tomato paste. Put the tomato paste right there. And let it kind of just get a little toasty here. Because when you toast spices or something like a tomato paste, it really adds another dimension. It brings another dimension of flavor. And then you mix it all together. To this, I will add the liquid of the mushrooms that I soaked. And be careful because mushrooms, even the dry mushrooms, have a little bit of dirt or whatever, and you can always find it on the bottom. So always leave a drop like that and toss that away. And I will add some Marsala wine. Marsala wine comes from Sicily. Is a fortified aged wine and it goes very well with the mushrooms. So let’s add Marcala. I think half of this will suffice. So basically this is the sauce. We’ll let it cook for about 20 minutes like this and then we’ll make a little palenta to go with it. Bonjouro, welcome to my library. This is where I read your emails, watch your videos, and answer you. So, here’s an email. It’s got a picture from Lori, and she writes that I inspired her in making these stuffed mushrooms in the pictures she sent. Let me take a look. Oh, those mushrooms look good, Lori. Very nice. Thanks for writing in, Lori. The sauce is just about ready. I think it’s time to cook the pollenta. And we’re going to cook instant penta. So penta that’ll take about 8 minutes. And I’m going to put some oil in the water, a little bit of salt, and I’m going to go get some bay leaves. My little bay leaf tree. My beautiful bay leaf tree. Three leaves is fine. Oh, another one came off. So, I’ll put four leaves. Put them right in. That gives a lot of flavor to the pollen. Dry bay leaves are okay. You just have to be careful because dry bay leaves, they crack into little pieces and they’re dangerous. So, make sure that however many you put in of dry leaves, you pull them out. And we’re going to slowly put the penta in. And this is instant pollenta. A pio like the rain says in Italian. And then you mix, mix, mix, mix because you don’t want it to form the groomi, as we say the little lumps. This way as it’s coming in, as it’s flowing, you are breaking it apart. Here we go. And you mix, mix, mix the penta, you know, it’s like a porridge. So it’s gets denser and denser. And as you can see, it begins to plop just like a volcano, like lava. Zoom zoom zoom zoom from the heat from the bottom. For the mushrooms, I think I like a nice dense penta nice mount. You know, I come from Fri Julia all the way up north. And we are called polleni. Penoni that means that we eat a lot of pollenta. And we do like the tuskcans are called mangja fajoli. They eat a lot of beans. Okay. So, I’m going to continue to whisk it on and off and we’re going to be ready to eat. Here is another email. Mary writes, “What’s the best way to clean mushrooms?” Well, it seems simple, so but it’s a good question, Mary. Mushrooms usually are pretty clean. The important thing is you cut off the stem and wherever the dirt is. And then you take a paper towel and you lightly wet it. You sort of clean the stem and you clean the cap. Do not soak them in water. Don’t give them an opportunity to take in to absorb the water because then they become very watery. Thanks, Mary. I’m checking. Everything is done. The penta is ready. The mushroom ragu. Let me pull out the sache. So, I’m going to flavor the penta a little bit. Let’s do the butter. And sometimes if you dress the penta just like this butter and some cheese, it could be the main course itself because it is so delicious. You can just put on top maybe a nice piece of gorgonzola or something and it could be a meal in itself. And you know what? Penta also keeps well. If you don’t use it all, you put it in the refrigerator and it’s good for the next day or the day after. Just like that. And I have the sauce which looks delicious. And I’m going to plate it for you. I am going to mount it in the center. Just like that. The aroma of penta just takes me right back to my childhood. Well, the smell of penta does it every time for me. Grandma used to cook it often. It was inexpensive. Whatever she had, even a little bacon, rendered bacon on top of penta with some cheese was delicious. Now, let’s put the mushroom on. I always use my little plate. And here is the mushroom sauce. You see diverse mushrooms, delicious. And again, so you don’t dribble all over the place. And you don’t have to smother the penta with the sauce. You put whatever is left or whatever you have extra on the side on the table. And as they’re digging into the penta, they can add some more sauce. And of course, Lydia M. And a little mushrooms. And these are the plates for you. Put a chunk of cheese at the table and let them grate some additional cheese. There’s some in there. Now I have to taste this. Fantastic. Just like silk. And with this a nice red wine with character. Just like just like us pollen. We have character. You have to make it because it is so delicious.