I was looking for a recipe to cook on Friday night and stumbled upon this one from Ree's extensive collection. Pasta, Okay. Mushrooms, Yum. Bacon, YES please. So I headed to the store to get my ingredients for this one and for the one that I cooked on Saturday night... look for that post soon.
This recipe has pretty simple ingredients and for my calculations I already had the Olive Oil and the Garlic. Ree says that this recipe serves 4. So according to her calculations this recipe cost 4.70 per person. Please keep in mind that i'm not figuring out how much one cup of parmesean calculates to, I'm just adding up what I bought divided by the number of people it serves. I figure that if you have to buy everything anyway you should know how much it will really cost. The good news is that this recipe definitely serves more than 4. I don't know how they grow them out there on the pioneer front, but we have already had 4 healthy servings and we have at least two more. Soooo according to 6 servings, it will be 3.13/serving. If you have a little bird appetite you might even be able to get 8 servings out of this so then it's only 2.35. Just depends on how hungry you are.
So, I get home with the ingredients and head to work on the recipe. This time I calculated how long it took me to do the recipe versus how long she says it takes to cook. According to her it takes 25 minutes total. That's prep time + cooking time. For me it took 45 minutes total. See, I told you she has super powers.
Let's start with the prep. The first thing you need to do is get everything chopped and diced and ready to go. So, we'll start with the most important part. The BACON. This recipe calls for 3 pieces of bacon... um, okay. I made it 8 pieces of bacon. I mean, who doesn't like bacon? If you don't like bacon, then you aren't going to like this blog. So slice up your 3 to 8 pieces in 1/2" pieces and set aside. Grab your mushrooms and clean them off. I was always told that mushrooms like cats hate water (yes, i did just successfully pull off a cat/mushroom analogy. Jealous? you should be.). I never, ever rinse them under the faucet. I always dampen a paper towel and just wipe off the dirt. But in doing some research there is much controversy over the proper way to wash a mushroom. Who knew. Some people say don't do it, others say it's fine as long as you don't soak them. So you chose whatever way you feel more comfortable. Once they are clean, grab a sharp knife and thinly slice them. Set those aside too.
Grab your parsley and take off a bunch of it. I used a handful. Wash it and pat it dry with a paper towel. Then put it on your cutting board and say a prayer to your higher power for the strength to chop it. I HATE chopping parsley. With a passion, I hate it. I've found that if you bunch it all up in your fingers and then chop, it makes it easier. Keep chopping until it is finely minced. Give thanks that it is over and you shall never have to do it again. Well, at least for that day.
Now you are ready to start cooking! If you follow the recipe, it is all pretty simple to do. If you are using a non-stick pan it is going to be really, really hard for you to brown the mushrooms. The non-stick surface doesn't really brown things very well. Turn the heat on your stove on HIGH. I did medium high for about 5 minutes and then really, really high for another 5 minutes. That seemed to work well. If you have a cast-iron skillet, then i would just follow the directions that she has, since that is what she uses.
Ree recommends that you use thin spaghetti or angel hair. Thin spaghetti and angel hair really absorb the sauce... so unless you plan on eating it all in one night or you plan to make some sort of sticky pasta sculpture out of it, you should opt for something that won't absorb as much. Maybe penne or farfalle. I would also recommend doubling the liquid in the recipe. So double cream, half and half and chicken broth. She says that for the chicken broth you can use white wine instead if you want. I actually used half chicken broth and half white wine. I think the white wine gives it a nice flavor. She recommends that if the sauce is absorbing too much to add some of the water from the pasta. Yuck. That just gives you, well, watery sauce. If after you double the liquids it is still too thick, add more chicken broth. You'll be glad that you did.
Now, here's a quiz for you. Ree forgets one critical part in the preparation instructions. Go back and reread them.
Do you know what it is?
No?
Okay, I'll tell you.... In my opinion, she left out the most important part. She tells you to cook the bacon and then set it aside, but she never tells you to add it back in! The shame. The shame. How could she forget the BACON?! I made an executive decision and added it in right after I turned off the heat on the sauce.
If you don't eat all of the pasta in one night, when you reheat the sauce add a little chicken broth to thin it out. You may need to add some extra Parmesan as well. Your call.
Well, that's all for today. Happy parsley chopping to you and yours.
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