Creamy funnel chanterelle and smoky cheese sauce with fiorelli

The VegHog is too fond of pasta and needs to share this creation with you even though there already have been quite a few pasta related stories.

For this pasta dish I'm using very special funnel chanterelles. Some time ago The VegHog received a large bag of dried funnel chanterelles from its father, who had collected them in the Finnish forests. That slightly suspicious packet miraculously made its way from Finland to England. This batch will keep The VegHog going for a long time this winter.

Please remember not to collect mushrooms in nature unless you know them very well! You can easily get different varieties of mushrooms in shops and markets.

Funnel chanterelles are excellent mushrooms for cooking because of their fine taste. They taste so intense that normally you don't have to use many of them to make a flavoursome dish.

Ingredients

A cup of dried funnel chanterelles

Fiorelli pasta

1 Onion

1-2 Cloves of garlic

Cream

Smoky cheese

Vegetable stock

White wine

Olive oil

Basil

Salt

Pepper

Make it so!

Soak the mushrooms in water for about 30 minutes. While the mushrooms are soaking, chop the onion, garlic and fresh basil and grate the cheese. I used Finnish creamy smoky cheese that I happened to have at home but also smoked cheddar should work nicely in this sauce. The funnel chanterelles are slightly smoky as well, so they make a good and strong combination.

Start frying the onions and garlic. Remove the soaking water from the mushrooms but save it and add it to the vegetable stock.

Chop the mushrooms small with a hand mixer and add them to the pan. When everything has been fried for some time, pour a little bit of white wine in. And when the wine has evaporated, add the vegetable stock to the pan and let the sauce reduce. Then add the cream and let it reduce again. You can also make a cream-free version. Finally add the grated smoky cheese into the sauce and stir.

Cook the pasta in salt water. Season the sauce with basil, salt and pepper. Mix the pasta with the sauce before serving and garnish the dish with smoky cheese and fresh basil.

Creamy version 

Creamless version

Creamy version with different pasta

Enjoy!

Your VegHog