huitlacoche, tequila and chili spaghetti

Huitlacoche is a fungus of corn; it is a smut. It also goes by the name corn truffle. It’s spores infect corn and turn the little yellow kernels into large, swolled, grey-black, gnarly looking galls. I had heard about it a few times but never seen it in a grocery store, or on a restaurant menu where I live. So I was really excited to see it on a menu when I was on a trip to Mexico in January and I ordered a dish of pasta with corn smut, chilis, tequila and parmesan and it was fantastic.

I came home from the trip determined to try to recreate it. I hunted around online and found some canned huitlacoche on Amazon, but it was a bit expensive to ship. I kind of got distracted and gave up my hunt for a little bit. Then, this past week I went to visit some relatives who grow lots of corn and who actually had loads of huitlacoche. I was really excited, and they thought I was totally nuts. I talked my uncle out of burning it, and took it home with me. I discarded a bit of it that hard gone from cool-gnarly to gross-gnarly on the way home and I had a wee little haul of just over a cup of goofy looking little grey and black mushrooms.

It’s a little odd to think about eating a parasite, actually a disease of another food. Infections, parasites, diseases: these are not ideas typically associated with deliciousness, healthiness, or even just food. I read a great article by the great Carl Zimmer on parasite eating that really puts the oddness of huitlacoche into perspective in the ranks of parasitic snacks. In that context huitlacoche comes out looking fairly tame, at least compared to some of the parasites people around the world are keen to munch. It’s a bit odd looking, a sooty, knobbly little swelling on corn, but it’s very tasty - earthy and mushroomy and savoury.

If you are picking fresh corn smut, look for blue-grey fungus that is tender-firm to a gentle squeeze. Smut that is still green is too young and bitter, and avoid any over-ripe fungus that is powdery inside or starting to go oozy (Appetizing, I know!)

In this recipe, I cooked the smut and the sauce separately, to keep the whole dish from turning grey. You can cook the garlic and smut together if you don’t want to wash an extra pan.

huitlacoche, tequila and chili spaghetti:

• ⅓ cup huitlacoche, fresh, frozen or canned. Chop roughly if pieces are large.
• 1 pound dry long pasta, spaghetti or linguine or whatever you like
• 2 tbs butter
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 2 tsp chili flakes (this will be medium spicy, add chilis to your taste)
• 1 bulb garlic, peeled and smashed
• ½ cup tequila
• ⅔ cup heavy cream
• ½ cup shredded parmesan
• ½ cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
• Salt and pepper

In a large frying pan on medium heat, fry garlic and chilis in the butter & oil, reserving a little bit of fat to cook huitlacoche. In a smaller pan, cook huitlacoche in the reserved fat on medium heat.

While you are making the sauce, cook pasta in generously salted water until just tender.

When huitlacoche softens, reduce heat to low. Once garlic begins to colour, add tequila to pan, and swirl to deglaze. Add cream and cook until the sauce thickens slightly. Toss the drained noodles into the sauce and serve topped with corn smut, parsley, parmesan and salt & pepper.

brown butter cream ravioli with greens

Wondering what to do with the tasty brown butter crumbs I told you all about last week? Just tossing them with some buttery, cheesy pasta would be amazing, but if you really want to take it up a notch, stir them into a garlicky cream sauce and toss that with butternut ravioli and layer all that over some fresh greens, to (slightly) offset all that buttery, creamy richness.

Use the leftover brown butter from making the brown butter crumbs in the sauce if you have it. Otherwise regular butter will do.

Butternut ravioli on kale with brown butter sauce:

• 1 package butternut ravioli, or any cheese filled stuffed pasta

• 6 cups greens, I used arugula and finely shredded kale

• 3 tbs pine nuts

• ½ cup heavy cream

• 1 cup chicken stock

• 2 tbs brown butter

• 2 cloves garlic, minced

• 1 pinch crushed chili flakes

• 4 tbs brown butter crumbs, divided

• ½ cup shredded parmesan cheese

Toast pine nuts in a dry pan over medium-low heat, shaking the pan frequently, until light brown.

Saute the garlic in butter until translucent and just starting to colour. Add chili flakes and cook about one more minute. Add cream and broth; simmer on medium low frequently stirring, until the sauce thickens. Sprinkle half of the brown butter crumbs into the sauce.

While the sauce thickens, cook pasta according to package instructions. Pile up greens on a big platter. When the pasta is tender, drain and toss in cream sauce. Spoon the pasta over the greens. Dress with parmesan, pine nuts and the remaining brown butter crumbs, very finely crumbled

The secret to the brown butter crumb? Powdered milk! You'll be sprinkling them on just about everything. 

big shells with artichokes and arugula

Pasta names are the best. Conchiglie are shells, every type from the teeny tiny ones that can just cup a pea, up to the giant ones that can be stuffed full of some exciting filling and baked with oozy, bubbly cheesy sauce. And the giant ones look just like the conch shells they are named after If you hold a giant conchiglie to your ear you don’t hear the ocean though, you hear that scene from Lady and the Tramp when they slurp up the spaghetti noodle until they kiss.  

I have been thinking about doing a baked pasta shell dish along these lines for ages, actually since I bought the first Smitten Kitchen cookbook. And while Deb Perelman is an undisputed genius, her stance on putting cheese in the shells is hard for me to get on board with. Why would anyone want to limit the cheesiness of baked pasta?

The shells don't have to be all cheese, I put some vegetables in there too. There is cheese in the sauce and cheese on top. To balance all this cheese I have pumped up the vegetables, with a generous helping of arugula and artichokes and some grape tomatoes tucked in the spaces between the shells.

adapted from The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook

shells & filling:

• around 20 extra large conchiglie shells
• 2 tbs olive oil
• 1 can artichokes, drained and roughly chopped
• 3 cups arugula, roughly chopped
• ½ cup chicken broth
• ½ cup ricotta
• ⅓ cup grated parmesan
• ⅓ cup grated romano cheese
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 tbs lemon juice
• salt and pepper
•  

In well-salted boiling water and cook shells until just tender. Lay cooked shells out in a baking dish drizzled with olive oil.

Combine all remaining ingredients and spoon into the shells.

sauce:

• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 cups whole milk
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup ricotta
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
• 1 tbs very finely chopped preserved lemon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• black pepper

Melt butter in a medium sized pan over medium heat. Add flour and whisk until smoothly combined. Add the milk a little at a time, stirring well after each addition. When all the milk is incorporated add the garlic and bring to a boil, whisking constantly. When the mixture begins to thicken, reduce heat and simmer for a couple more minutes. Add ricotta, lemon, salt and pepper.

assembly:

• 1 pint grape tomatoes
• ½ cup parmesan & romano cheese
• parsley, roughly chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Tuck tomatoes into the spots between the shells. Pour sauce over the shells, giving them some little pokes to distribute the sauce well. Sprinkle cheese over everything and bake, covered with tinfoil for about 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake 15-20 minutes longer, or until cheese is golden and bubbling. Sprinkle with parsley. Serve right away.

beef, olive and goat cheese ragu

Ok, so just because something takes ages to cook, it doesn't need to be intimidating or especially involved. This dish takes 3-4 hours from start to finish, but for almost all that time it's quite hands-off. This recipe is ideal to start in the middle of a weekend afternoon - almost all the actual work is at the beginning and takes about 20 minutes. Then you have a lazy afternoon ahead of you while your dinner cooks itself! It really cooks itself, just like in Beauty and the Beast. Your knives and forks will dance all around, your candlesticks will flirt saucily with you while your sauce cooks. 

This ragout simultaneously rich and hearty as well as bright and peppy. Olives add salty bite and balance out the richness of the ragu.

beef and olive ragu with goats cheese

Adapted from Donna Hay Issue 68

• 1 pound fresh tomatoes or two cans tinned tomatoes
• 1 1/2 pounds stewing beef, beef shin or other beef cut suitable for slow cooking, cut into 1.5 inch chunks
• 2/3 cup kalamata or other olives of your choice 
• whole bulb of garlic, peeled and smashed 
• 2 shallots, sliced
• 2 cups beef broth
• 3 tbs grapeseed oil 
• salt and pepper 
• parsley, chopped
• goats cheese

In a large pot or dutch oven on medium high heat, sear beef on all sides until browned. Remove beef from pan and set aside. 

Add shallots and garlic to the pan and sauté until translucent and fragrant. Add tomatoes, olives, beef, broth, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil and then reduce heat to a very gentle simmer. Cover with a lid and cook for 2.5-3 hours, until the beef is fall-apart tender. 

Serve over pasta and top with parsley and crumbled goat cheese.

Try the grey stuff, it's delicious!

rabbit and green olive ragout

Rabbit is very lean meat. It's so lean that it can kill you through rabbit starvation, a rare form of protein toxicity that sometimes kills isolated explorers who run out of vegetables and fat and have only very lean meat to eat for extended periods. There is no danger from rabbit if eaten with vegetables, fat and carbohydrates though, so no need to fear this pasta. But rabbit starvation is good to keep in mind if you're planning an arctic expedition or post-apocalyptic survival bunker. Preppers take note.

Even though it is so lean, it can be very tender if you cook it slowly. Farmed rabbit is very mild meat and it goes well with bright, sour, salty flavours. This ragout has similar flavours to puttanesca: tomatoes, olives, capers and lots of garlic, but it's cooked very slowly. I like to put in some of the olives and capers right near the end of cooking to give both slow cooked and fresher versions of their flavours to the sauce. 

rabbit ragout: 

• one whole rabbit, cut into pieces (ask your butcher to cut it, or follow these instructions)

• one pound of tomatoes chopped (fresh, canned or frozen are fine)

• one cup chicken stock

• olive or vegetable oil

• one cup green olives, divided

• 2 tbs capers, divided

• one whole bulb of garlic, peeled and smashed

• one large yellow onion, chopped

• a bunch of parsley, roughly chopped

• a generous amount of homemade or dry pasta

In a large dutch oven on medium heat, sear the rabbit pieces with a little oil, browning on all sides. Remove the rabbit and set aside. Sauté the garlic and onions until golden brown.  Add the tomatoes and cook until they begin to soften. 

Return the rabbit to the pot. Add the stock, half the olives and half the capers. Increase the heat until the liquid simmers vigorously and then reduce to medium low. Cook on low until rabbit is very tender and falling off the bone, around 1.5-2hrs. Remove pan from heat. Remove rabbit pieces, shred the meat off the bone and return it to the pan. Add the remaining olives and capers. Serve over fresh papparedelle, made from super rich pasta dough like this one from smitten kitchen or over any other pasta you like. Sprinkle over lots of fresh parsley.

Photos by Tyrel Hiebert

penne a la vodka

This is a deceptive little sauce. It looks more or less like plain old tomato sauce, it's just as easy to make as plain old tomato sauce.  But it is not just tomato sauce; it's tomato sauce with vodka! And cream! It's richer and creamier and fancier. It's fancy tomato sauce.  If you want to make it even fancier, you can serve it topped with some shrimp sautéed in garlic and butter. Or really lean into the carbs + butter combo theme of this meal and have some garlic bread. 

I have been making this recipe for a few years, ever since I saw it on Smitten Kitchen, where the brilliant Deb Pereleman adapted it from a Rachel Ray recipe. But I was reluctant to post it here, for some reason I couldn't quite fathom. In her post, Deb talks about being embarrassed by the original name of the recipe: "You Won't Be Single For Long Vodka Cream Pasta". I find names like this more than just embarrassing-they make me shudder, they make my skin crawl a little. I can't say them aloud; the idea of ordering something with a name like this makes me feel unwell. Embarrassing names like this tend to turn up in bars that have house invited libations  (I feel like there may be a correlation between names of this sort and bartenders who call themselves mixologists, but this is just a hunch). I wonder about the thought process behind these names. Do bartenders and menu writers do this knowing the moment of anxiety they will produce among their more neurotic customers when they contemplate saying these things? I have sometimes resorted to pointing at what I want rather than having to say the unpleasant names that proud (or malicious?) bartenders or chefs have given their inventions. If the idea of this sort of name is unfamiliar to you, browse through any Guy Fieri menu and I think you'll see what I mean. If you can contemplate saying "guy-talian" to another human being without breaking a sweat, you are a stronger person than me. 

Maybe the residual embarrassing-name-shame I felt from just reading about the recipe was keeping me from sharing it. But I powered through my overdeveloped sense of awkward-name-anxiety for two reasons:

• This pasta is really tasty.

• And it has another name! A proper name, a sensible name. A name I can say without blushing: penne a la vodka.

penne a la vodka:

adapted from smitten kitchen

• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil

• 4 cloves garlic, smashed

• 2 shallots, minced

• a big pinch of red chili flakes

• 3/4 cup vodka

• 1 cup chicken stock

• 2 cups tomatoes, roughly chopped (if it's not tomato season, canned or frozen tomatoes are probably better than fresh)

• salt and pepper

• 1/2 cup heavy cream

• lots of fresh basil, shredded

• penne

Fry garlic, shallots and chili in oil and butter over medium heat until they begin to brown. Add vodka and cook until reduced by about half. Add chicken stock and tomatoes. Cook until the tomatoes are falling apart and the sauce has thickened. Add cream and simmer on medium low until the pasta is ready.

While the sauce is cooking, cook penne in a generous quantity of salted water. When the pasta is al dente  drain it and toss into sauce. Serve, topped with basil and a little parmesan if you want. Call this dish whatever you like and try not to be too stressed out about it.