[recipe index]

Introduction

I've been cooking this recipe for many years; while the original is dairy-heavy, I've recently cooked it completely dairy-free (margarine instead of butter, and some soya-based thing instead of cream), and amazingly it's almost exactly as good as the original dairy version. Serve with grana or parmesan if you like; nice to have a green salad on the side too.

Ingredients

• 600g mushrooms (eg chestnut mushrooms).
• 200-250ml cream, or cookable soya equivalent.
• 600g fresh tagliatelle.
• Margarine or butter for frying (you'll need a good 100g or so).
• Decent quantity of some herb, eg parsley or thyme; ideally fresh.

Method

1. Wipe 600g chestnut mushrooms (eg with damp kitchen paper), and slice (3-4mm thick).
2. Fry mushrooms in butter or marge on both sides, in batches (only one layer in frying pan at a time).
3. While frying, also bring a pan of salted water to the boil for the pasta.
4. Once all the batches of mushrooms are fried (gently browned on both sides), put them all in the frying pan and add the 200-250ml cream (or soya equivalent) and herb. Let simmer gently while cooking the pasta.
5. Add the 600g tagliatelle to the boiling water, and cook as per packet instructions. A few minutes generally does it for fresh pasta.
6. Once pasta is cooked, strain it and mix with the cream, mushroom and herb mixture.

Notes

There are two variants in this recipe: the dairy-heavy version (with butter and cream), and the dairy-free (with margarine and some soya-based cream replacement). To my great astonishment, the dairy-free one is pretty much as good as the butter+cream variant.

This recipe is not copied from a book, and is given freely in the hope of sharing pleasure.