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10/26/2005 Archived Entry: "Spaghetti with Porcini and Tomatoes"

Last Saturday, I spent the day at Sickles Market in Little Silver, New Jersey. I was there to judge the market’s annual apple pie contest with Rozanne Gold – the queen of simplicity, having written nine “1-2-3” three-ingredient cookbooks -- and Carole Walter -- our area’s most celebrated baking teacher and the author of several award-winning baking books. The proceeds from the contest (and the sale of pies) this year goes to Holiday Express, an organization that entertains patients and other unfortunate people who are often forgotten by mainstream charities. Altogether, with a Friday night party and an auction, Sickles Market raised $45,000 to help make the holidays happy for many people.

I would love to say that judging 60-something pies was pure fun, but it is also grueling and we take the task seriously. We started at about 10:30 and didn’t finish until 2 p.m. I don’t want to look at another apple pie until next year’s contest. When we were finished, I was desperately craving a tuna fish sandwich, just to get the sweet tastes out of my mouth. Like after a wine tasting, I crave beer. Bob Sickles, who organizes this event with the precision of a drill sergeant but has the heart of gold to think of it and stage it (let’s just say he is the consummate “gent”) -- also offered the judges some beautiful Serrano ham from Spain. There are days when I think I like Serrano even better than prosciutto, which is a close cousin.

After the judging, the three of us formed a panel to discuss ingredients. This was held in the Sickles Market greenhouse with a standing-room only audience. Brooke Tarabour, food columnist for the Star Ledger, interrogated us with amusing questions about ingredients – like what three would we take on a desert island. What ingredients to we keep in the house for those nights we have to throw something together?

My answers seemed always to include spaghetti. So, naturally, when I got home, I had to make and eat spaghetti for dinner.

In straightening out a cupboard the other day, I had run across a small plastic box with a few dried porcini, and I had left them on the counter so I would remember to use them up. The porcini, I figured, were a good place to start with my spaghetti sauce. I also had some very expensive tomatoes that I had bought just to try them – I had never seen them before. They are called “Campari” tomatoes, which is a brand name, and they are about the size of golf balls. At $3.99 a pound, in a plastic box, I thought they were mighty expensive, but perhaps really, really good. You never know. In actuality, they are middling good. That’s an awfully high price for mediocre tomatoes, although they are better than most we can buy in the off season, which is most of the year. However, I have since found out, from some of you, that I can buy them at Costco for $4.99 for a three-pound box, and sometimes $3.99 for two pounds. (I sent this entry out as an email newsletter earlier this week, so I have already gotten some feedback. If you would like to get my missives first, before they appear in the Maven’s Diary, put your email address in the newsletter box at the top of this page.)

Anyway, porcini with a little tomato sounded good. If I say so myself, it was great – great enough to want to share the recipe that I devised, which follows.

Spaghetti with Porcini and Tomatoes
Serves 2

Dried porcini are expensive, but go a long way. I use an extravagant amount here, but, what can I say? Use fewer? Yes, you can. You won’t, however, get the same powerful flavor by using any kind of fresh mushroom.

¼ cup (or less) dried porcini
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
1 large clove garlic, finely minced
4 “Campari” tomatoes, quartered; or 8 to 10 cherry tomatoes, halved
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
6 ounces spaghetti or tubular macaroni, such as penne or ziti
Freshly grated Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese

Put the porcini in a measuring cup or small bowl and cover with no more than 3/4 cup hot tap water. Let the mushrooms soak for 20 minutes, then strain them out of the water, saving the soaking water. Cut the mushrooms into pieces, for the most part not smaller than a dime.

To cook the pasta, bring 2 quarts of water to a rolling boil with a tablespoon of salt.

Meanwhile, in a small skillet, over low heat, combine the olive oil and garlic. Let sizzle gently until the garlic is tender, but not browned.

Increase the heat to medium and add the mushrooms. Toss in the oil for a minute. Add about ¼ cup of the mushroom soaking liquid and let simmer another minute or so

The pasta should be boiling by now.

To the sauce in the skillet, add the tomatoes, a starter amount of salt and pepper – say, ¼ teaspoon salt and a few grinding of pepper -- and let simmer for about 10 minutes, as long as it takes to boil the pasta. The tomatoes should break down and more or less disappear into the sauce (except for their skins). Add a little more mushroom soaking liquid as the sauce reduces. In the end it should not be watery, but it should be liquid. You will probably have some mushroom liquid left, but maybe not.

Just before the pasta is cooked, taste the sauce and adjust the salt and pepper.

Drain the pasta and return it to the pot it cooked in. Add the sauce. Toss over medium heat for about 1 minute. The pasta will absorb some of the sauce.

Serve immediately with grated cheese.