Thursday 4 October 2012

Linguine with Mushrooms, Marsala and Mascarpone










This is the first recipe I've cooked from Nigella Lawson's new book Nigellissima. It is everything you'd expect from The Domestic Goddess. Generous, rich, beautiful to look at... a bit like the woman herself.

NOTE: The original recipe uses Fettuccine, but I like Linguine and it's what I had to hand. I'm sure Nigella wouldn't mind.


Linguine with Mushrooms, Marsala and Mascarpone
from Nigella Lawson's Nigellissima
Serves 2

15g dried porcini mushrooms
60ml Marsala
60ml water
125g mascarpone
freshly grated nutmeg
ground pepper
2 tablespoons chopped parsley, plus extra to serve
250g dried Linguine
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1 small garlic clove, peeled
4 tablespoons grated Parmesan

Put the porcini into to the smallest pan you have. Pour in the Marsala and the water, bring to boil over medium heat and then, just as it starts to boil, take it off the heat and leave for about 10 minutes. The mushrooms need to be submerged in the liquid so that they soften.

Put the mascarpone into a small bowl, add a good amount of grated nutmeg and some ground pepper. Once the porcini have softened, strain them into the bowl, letting the soaking liquid mix with the mascarpone. Whisk to combine.

Chop the porcini and the parsley together on a chopping board.

Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water according to packet instructions.

In a large pan, warm the butter and add the grated garlic. Stir it together, then mix in the mushrooms and parsley and cook for a few minutes. Pour the mascarpone into the pan and cook for another minute. Remove it from the heat.

Reserve a cup of the pasta cooking water. Drain the pasta and pour it into the pan with the mascarpone and toss to coat. Add a little of the reserved pasta cooking water if it looks a little dry.

Add the Parmesan, toss everything together and check the seasoning. Serve with more parsley and Parmesan.



16 comments:

  1. Hi!!I´m from Spain and I read all your posts!! I absolutely love your blog, it´s fantastic!!
    Congrats and lots of love!!
    You have a new follower now :)

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  2. Hey Esther. Welcome and thank you so much for your lovely comment. It's nice to know I'm not just blathering away to myself in cyberspace. I love getting comments, they're what keep me blogging and blathering :)

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  3. This is a mix of what I looooveeee in this world. Pastas, I never can get enough, mushrooms; I didn't like it before but now I'm obsessed, marsala; a little bit of wine here and there is always better and mascarpone; god, who doesn't like that? It's so goooooodd. And mix together, I'm sure that this plate of pastas could blown away lots of person. Aww Nigella, she's something :) Your photos are beautiful as usual miss Jen :)

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  4. I love Nigella, her show is wonderful! I especially love near the end where she comes into her dark kitchen after a nice night out and whips together something perfect! She is truly a domestic goddess, you two would make an incredible team! I’m sure she would be honored by your compliments to her dish:) So, when are you going to call the network about your own show??

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  5. Lovely mushroom dish. Food on Friday: Mushrooms is still open if you would like to link this in - actually all of the previous ones are open - but for some of the earlier ones I have already done the features post - but I haven't done mushrooms yet! Cheers

    PS A big thank you for following Carole's Chatter

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  6. Thanks for linking this in. Cheers

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  7. Thank you Gabrielle. I agree, every ingredient is fabulous on its own, but when you put them together... magic happens. Nigella is pretty magical as well :)

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  8. I love Nigella too Leah. Can you tell? Yes, her late night trips to the refrigerator are legendary. And on the TV show front, the camera loves Nigella... me, not so much LOL!

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  9. Thanks Carole. I have entered this post. I appreciate the invitation.

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  10. Yum! Do you use sweet or dry Marsala?

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  11. @ Fra kjøkkenbenken. I used dry Marsala. The original recipe doesn't specify, but I tend to like dry wines, so I used what I had. I would think that either would be fine. If you like things on the sweet side, then use the sweet Marsala.

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  12. I need to look for this book, I love Nigella. Recipe sounds delicious.

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  13. What would you recommend as a starter if serving this dish? Needs to be vegetarian. Help please! X

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  14. Halloumi salad it is! The Beetroot dish looks divine, but blood oranges are just impossible to find at the moment in the UK! Thank you so much! X ps; this is officially my favourite recipe related page on the web!!

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  15. You have seriously (seriously!) made my day Anon. :-) And BTW, you could use a navel orange with a squeeze of lime juice instead of the blood orange in the Beetroot Carpaccio dish if you realllyyy want to make it. But I think the Haloumi Salad is an excellent choice.

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