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>>Mushrooms are one of my favorites.

I love to put mushrooms in lots of things.

And today on Tassie's Table, we're making a wild mushroom cream sauce that we're going to serve with orecchiette pasta.

So we're gonna get started with a nice warm pan.

And to that, I'm going to add just a little bit of pancetta or bacon.

I'm looking for just a little flavor here, not a lot of meat.

So let's just get that stirred around a little bit.

And to that, I want to go ahead and add some extra fat so it renders quickly, it gets nice and crispy, and then I can put in my other things.

So a little bit of olive oil.

I'm gonna say, oh, a tablespoon, tablespoon and a half.

And then, I also want to add just a little bit of butter, about a tablespoon.

Now, we're going to let that fat render out, get this bacon nice and crispy, and then we'll move on to our next step.

All right, I'm nice and crispy now in my pan, and I want to add some mushrooms.

Now, I have a mixture here, about 12 ounces of mushrooms that I've just chopped to fine.

And in it, I have cremini mushrooms, which are baby portobello mushrooms.

I have a little bit of oyster mushrooms, and I have some shiitakes.

And you can use any kind of mushrooms that you like.

Whatever you find available, that works great.

And of course, you can also use button mushrooms for this if you don't like the taste of wild mushrooms.

So we're just gonna stir those until all of them are coated with all of this deliciousness in the pan.

And while they're getting cooked, I'm going to add a little bit of onion.

Now, this is about half of a small onion.

Now, a small onion will yield you about 3/4 of a cup.

So it's about, oh, about 1/3 of a cup or so of onion.

And of course, you can always adjust according to the taste that you like, a little more onion or a little less.

Now, what I'm looking for is for my mushrooms just to start to soften.

I don't really want to cook everything out of my mushrooms.

I like the flavor of mushrooms and the texture to be there.

So I'm not going to cook them until they're so tiny that I feel like they're just smoosh in the plate.

Alright, at this point I want to add a clove or two of garlic.

I think I've got one large clove here.

Now, you can see that these are starting to cook down and the moisture is starting to come out of them.

Before all of that moisture is gone, I want to hold it, I want that flavor.

So let's add about a cup and a half of cream.

Now, this is heavy cream, so you need to use heavy cream generally when you're making a cream sauce.

But if you're on a super tight diet, once in a while, you can get by with a canned product that's like an evaporated skim milk.

That will give you much less fat, just doesn't give you the flavor.

So we're just going to cook this for about two minutes until all of this cream starts to bubble up on the side.

And at that point, I'm going to thicken this with a little bit of cheese.

Now, I'm starting to see those bubbles all around the pan.

So I want to add just a little bit of red pepper flake, about 1/4 of a teaspoon.

And then, I'm going to add about 1/2 cup of Parmesan cheese.

And this is freshly grated Parmesan cheese.

Don't use the pre-grated that you get in the grocery store because it just doesn't melt well.

Now, while my cooked top is still on, I'm going to add some orecchiette.

Now, orecchiette is this little cup-style pasta.

It means baby elephant ear.

And it's wonderful for this because it catches all of that pasta sauce and it really gives a nice little place to hold the mushrooms and the sauce.

Now, let's just stir that and turn it off.

Oh, it looks fantastic.

Now, let's just give it a little sprinkle of salt and pepper and stir that through.

Oh, this looks wonderful.

Now, let's get this into our serving bowl.

And I'm going to put this in a bowl that will serve two people, and then you can take it to the table and serve it up just like that with a couple of dishes.

I just think this is so pretty plated.

Now, this is about 1/2 pound of orecchiette with the 12 ounces of mushrooms.

And let's get all that creamy sauce right down into our bowl.

Oh, just gorgeous.

There we go.

Now, let's hit it with just a little bit of parsley to finish it off.

This is so pretty.

It's so delicious.

And what a great date night meal.

I hope you enjoy this recipe.

For more like it, visit me again on Tassie's Table.

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