Our pasta course was the overall hit of last week’s menu at Casa SaltShaker. Our favorite course too.
A couple of years ago I introduced you to langanelli, a whole wheat pasta from the area around Rome. The original way I saw it made was in sort of vaguely trapezoidal shapes – a long strip of dough was rolled out, and then with alternating angles, the pasta was cut – ending up sort of like triangles with their tips cut off. Over time, I’ve gone my own route, and what I do now is roll the dough out into a circle and cut pizza slices. Sue me. The dough is made from 3 cups of whole wheat flour (about 350 gm), 2 eggs, and just enough water to bring it together. Remember, I’m making a pasta course for a dozen people – you may want to cut that back a bit, unless this is going to be the full meal.
I’ve started with that original recipe with chickpeas, onions, and celery, but souped it up… my lamborghini of langanelli. We’re going with mushrooms – a mix of what you have available – here I have button mushrooms, baby portobellos, baby shiitakes, and oyster mushrooms. Roughly half a kilo in total – or, a pound.
Slice, dice, or chop – I pretty much just sliced. On the side, a mix of 2 tablespoons of frangelico liqueur (hazelnut), 2 tablespoons of cynar (a bitters made from artichokes), and 1 teaspoon of liquid smoke.
In a splash of olive oil and a pat of butter, with a pinch of salt, saute the mushrooms together until they’ve given up their liquid and it’s mostly evaporated.
Deglaze the pan with that liqueur mixture and toss through well until it’s absorbed.
Set the mushrooms aside. This can be done earlier in the day, just keep them covered, and/or refrigerated, depending on how long until dinner.
Chop up three stalks of celery, leaves and all, 1 medium white onion, 1-2 hot chilies (seeded or not, depending on if you want this really spicy or not), and, a handful of cashews, either chopped, or, as I did, blitzed in a food processor until basically a powder.
Blend together 150 gm (5-6 oz) of fresh goat cheese, 2 tablespoons of white miso, and the juice of a lemon. Reserve the lemon peel, grated, to the side – we’re going to make a little gremolata, which is just the grated lemon peel, grated clove of garlic, some coarse ground black pepper, and, while normally, chopped parsley, in this case, I chopped up a kale leaf, because I wanted a hint of bitterness.
Ready to start? Get that pasta water on with a bit of salt in it, and get it up close to boiling. In a skillet, saute the chopped celery mixture in peanut oil (or another oil if you prefer, I wanted both something that would stand up to high heat, but also add another note of nuttiness along with the ground cashews and the hazelnut liqueur). Just a pinch of salt here, and saute until soft.
Add a can of chickpeas, liquid and all. Cook for about five minutes. At this point, the pasta goes into the now boiling water.
Add the mushrooms, and cook just for about 2 minutes to both meld the flavors, but also to reheat them.
Add the goat cheese mixture and a ladle of the pasta water, which will both add some salt, and also some dissolved starch, to get this thickening up. Bring this mix up to a full boil, and by this point, the pasta should be al dente.
Reserve a little more of the pasta water, just in case, and drain the pasta, and put it into the sauce.
Toss well and let the sauce adhere and absorb into the pasta for a minute. If it starts to look dry, just add a little of the reserved pasta water. Taste and adjust seasoning if need be – my pasta water is salted enough that at the end, this works our without any need for more, and is part of why I use very little salt in the saute processes for the mushrooms and the vegetables.
And, serve, garnished with that gremolata we mixed up above. Eat and enjoy!
