My grandpa passed away last week and it’s been very sad to think about what the holidays are going to look like in the future without our patriarch at the head of the table wearing a sweater vest and telling off-color stories to anyone who would pretend they hadn’t already heard them. If there’s one thing that made him the happiest in life, it was sitting around a big table with his family eating pasta with red sauce. Every single time he took the first bite of a plate of pasta with my mom’s sauce, full of falling-apart spicy sausage and braciole, he would tell her it was the best sauce he’d ever eaten. Without fail. Because she does make a delicious sauce, but also because sharing a big Italian meal with family makes it taste even better.
I love my mom’s sauce and it’s something that I will write down and probably share in the future. But one of the fun parts about growing up (and frankly there are not that many fun parts so I’m trying to hang onto what I can) is paving my own way and figuring out what is my sauce and what recipes are going to be the ones that I teach someone else someday. The first time I made this porcini mushroom sauce, I could not believe how meaty it tasted. It’s amazingly rich and flavorful for being such a simple sauce, but those porcinis really add something special to the dish. They also will drain your wallet but I assure you, it’s totally worth it. Make the sauce, freeze the sauce, enjoy it now, enjoy it later. Just do it.
Marcella Hazan also recently passed away, and just like my grandpa was a legendary character, she was both a character and an actual legend. A true authority on Italian cooking and not afraid to say exactly what was on her mind. Marcella had every right to be bossy in the kitchen because her recipes always have about 4 ingredients and 3 sentences of instructions and taste amazing every single time I make them. She’s never given me a dud. But the thing about simple recipes and traditional cooking is that you need to be using quality ingredients. I know everyone says this and I kind of roll my eyes too, most of the time, but to make this sauce you need to go out and splurge on San Marzano tomatoes and not pinch pennies on the Shop Rite brand. You need to shell out for that tiny bag of porcini mushrooms that are going to taste like a MORE DELICIOUS version of meat in your sauce, if there is even such a thing. Do you want an amazing sauce or a run-of-the-mill sauce? The choice is yours.
One fun thing I’ve learned from Marcella’s book Essentials of Italian Cooking (which, I’m sure I don’t need to say by now, is a truly essential cookbook that you should have) is what kinds of sauce go with what kinds of pasta. I’d never really given it much thought before, and I guess to a certain extent it’s a little obvious, but she recommends that you serve short hearty pasta that will hold its own against this thick, chunky, meaty sauce. I went for conchiglie, you can opt for penne, ridged ziti or fresh tonnarelli or pappardelle, or be a rulebreaker and pave your own path with wagon wheels or whatever suits your fancy.
After you’ve simmered this sauce for 40 minutes on a Sunday and your whole kitchen (or your whole apartment) smells like delicious food, sit down and enjoy a bowl (or two) of it with someone you love. Have some friends over who will no doubt tell you this is the best sauce they’ve ever eaten. Call your grandparents and your parents to say hello and brag about your sauce. Nothing says love like a big pot of red sauce.
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons shallot or onion chopped fine
- 2 1/2 tablespoons butter
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons pancetta, prosciutto or unsmoked ham, cut into 1/4-inch wide strips
- 1 1/2 cups fresh, ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, or canned imported Italian plum tomatoes, cut up, with their juice
- A small packet or 1 oz. dried porcini mushrooms, reconstituted (instructions in the recipe)
- The water from the reconstituted mushrooms
- Salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 pound pasta
- Freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese for the table
Instructions
- First soak the mushrooms in 2 cups of barely warm water for at least thirty minutes. Once done, lift them out by hand, squeezing as much water as possible out of them, letting it flow back into the container in which they had been soaking. Rinse the reconstituted mushrooms in several changes of fresh water. Scrape clean any places where soil may be embedded. Pat dry with paper towels. Take the water in which the mushrooms were soaking and filter it through a strainer lined with power towels, collecting it in a bowl or pouring cup. Set aside.
- Put the shallots or onion into a saucepan together with all the butter and oil, and turn on the heat to medium. Cook and stir the shallot or onion until it becomes colored a pale gold. Add the strips of pancetta or ham, and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, stirring from time to time.
- Add the cut-up tomatoes with their juice, the reconstituted mushrooms, the strained liquid from the mushroom soak, salt and several grindings of pepper. Adjust the heat so that the sauce bubbles at a gentle but steady simmer. Cook in the uncovered pan for about 40 minutes, until the fat and the tomato separate, stirring occasionally.
- After tossing the pasta with the sauce, serve with freshly grated Parmesan on the side.
Notes
https://www.thekitchenchronicles.com/2015/06/22/tomato-sauce-with-porcini-mushrooms/
