Trottole ai Gamberi e Funghi

This recipe is specced for long pasta like tonnarelli or fusilli lunghi, but we had a bag of never-before-seen trottole and decided to use that instead. As usual, we ramped up the quantity of sauce significantly compared to what the recipe calls for. The result was delicious, although the sauce took longer to make than planned due to taking longer to cook down the liquid.

The recipe also calls for heavy cream (35% MF) and raw, shelled shrimp. We have a surplus of half-and-half (10% MF) right now, so I used that and increased the quantity. For the shrimp, we had frozen cooked shelled shrimp, which I tossed into the sauce a bit earlier than called for to let them thaw; I might experiment with alternate approaches in the future, since they released a lot of moisture when doing so.

Trottole ai Gamberi e Funghi (Trottole with Shrimp and Mushrooms)

The Classic Pasta Cookbook by Guiliano Hazan (pp.104-105)

Ingredients

• 450-500g dried pasta
• 45g dried porcini mushrooms
• ½ C olive oil
• 1½-2 C yellow onions, halved and thinly sliced
• 5 garlic cloves, minced
• 650g fresh cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 450mL diced tomatoes (or whole plum tomatoes, smashed)
• ¾ C heavy cream, or 1½ C half-and-half
• 500-600g cooked peeled frozen shrimp
• freshly grated parmesan for serving

Directions

1. Place dried porcini in a bowl and pour over 1½ C warm water. Let stand 20 minutes.
2. Drain, reserving mushroom water. Rinse mushrooms and coarsely chop.
3. Pour mushroom water through a coffee filter and buffer.
4. Heat oil and onion in a large, deep-sided skillet over medium heat. Cook until the onion softens and turns golden.
5. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, 30-60 seconds.
6. Increase heat to medium-high and add the porcini and their filtered water. Cook, stirring often, until the water has evaporated.
7. Add the cremini slices, season with salt and pepper, and cook until they are tender and the water they release has evaporated.
8. Add the tomatoes and cook until about half the liquid has cooked off.
9. Meanwhile, start the pasta cooking.
10. Reduce heat to medium, add the cream, and cook until reduced by half.
11. Add the shrimp and simmer until thawed and heated through.
12. Toss with the cooked pasta and serve.