Pasta in Mushroom White Sauce

Buongiorno! (Translated: Good morning)


felice giornata di pasta internazionale (Translated: Happy International Pasta Day)

I've only met one person that doesn't eat Pasta... for the rest of us normal people, this is one hearty meal that you would fall in love with over and over again.

There is nothing complicated about this meal, as restaurant worthy as it looks, it takes only a few minutes to put together, the ingredients are also simple, you probably already have them on hand.


White sauces are usually indulgent if you use full cream, however here I have used coconut milk and it worked perfectly. The coconut flavor was not as strong as I thought it would be thanks to the Parmesan cheese and the mushroom.

You can substitute a few things here:
- Mushroom for Bacon or Chicken
- Coconut milk for cream or regular milk
- Pasta- Use any kind that you like, I used Fettuccine because I think it holds up to the sauce very well

Here is the full list of ingredients

- Pasta (Fettuccine)
- Coconut milk
- Garlic (not optional)
- Onion (optional)
- Flour
- Black pepper
- Cayenne pepper (aka dry red pepper)
- Salt
- Nutmeg
- Parmesan cheese
- Fresh Coriander
- Butter/Olive oil

Lets get cooking:

1. Slice the mushrooms, garlic, onion. At the same time in a large pot, put some water to boil the pasta.

 2. In a non-stick pan, add Olive oil, once sizzling, add sliced mushroom and saute on medium heat until they turn brown, by doing this all the delicious meaty flavors of the mushroom are released.

3. Add the onions and garlic, as soon as the garlic becomes fragrant, put the mixture aside in a bowl.
4. By now the pasta water would have boiled, add 2 Tbsp of salt, Italians say your pasta water should taste like the sea.
5. In the same pan were the mushroom was saute'd add 2 table spoons of butter, once melted, add 1 heaping Tbsp of flour, cook this for 1 min. Its called a Roux. It may brown up a little, that's fine.

Roux

6. Add the coconut milk to the roux, cook string with a wooden spoon on medium low until the sauce thicken a little bit.

7. Add the saute'd mushroom and any liquid that may have accumulated. Add black pepper, Cayenne, nutmeg and grated Parmesan cheese. Skip the salt here because the pasta is salted and the cheese has salt too.

8. Drain the pasta (reserve some pasta water) and add it to the sauce and mix until the pasta is well coated with the sauce, allow this to simmer on low, if the sauce seems too thick add some of the pasta water to loosen it a little bit.

9. Add sliced coriander, turn off the heat and stir.
10. To serve, I love to add, more cheese, black pepper and some crushed red pepper for some extra pzazz.