porcini, porcini, porcini!

This week I’m kind of on holiday. I packed my bags, threw them in the trunk of my car and went off, from Innsbruck in Tyrol to Lajen in South Tyrol, the place where my parents live and where i grew up. It’s a very small village, so if you need more than three bars and a fews cows around you don’t want to live there. But if you are looking for one of the most beautiful sceneries in the Alps and a great hiking spot, the South Tyrol region is definitely where you want to go. There are not only the amazingly beautiful Dolomite mountains, which have recently been awarded UNESCO world heritage status. There are also vineyards in the valleys and deep forests and alpine pastures in the mountains.

 

So I did some hiking in the region over the last few days. Yesterday I hiked the Raschötz, which gives you one of the most beautiful sceneries in the region. You can also see the Geisler group with the Sas Rigais, the highest of the group (which I am going to climb with my girlfriend tomorrow… excited!!!).

This week the weather was perfect for the growth of mushrooms, especially porcini. On nearly every hiking tour I found some. And not just me, also my parents (who, I have to admit, are better mushroom spotters than me) found plenty, so it was time for a porcini cook up.

the reward for a two hour long hike through the woods

I made porcini carpaccio (raw young porcini cut in thin slices, marinated just with a drizzle of lemon juice and olive oil, salt an pepper), my mom made South Tyrolean Knödel (white bread dumplings) with porcini sauce, and today I had porcini frittata for breakfast and porcini pappardelle for lunch. Yes, life can be very good!

If you can find (or buy) some good porcini too and are looking for some damn tasty ways of cooking them, here are my recipes for porcini frittata and the sauce for porcini pappardelle.

Porcini frittata

Perfect for a late breakfast or brunch, already one medium sized porcino does the job. Besides the porcino, you need half an onion, a garlic clove, some thyme, 4 eggs, some milk, salt, pepper and some chili.

Gently fry the chopped onion in a skillet over low heat until translucent, adding the chopped garlic a little later. Increase the heat and add the sliced porcino. Add salt, pepper, chili and some thyme and fry everything until the porcino has become quite soft. Don’t overcook it or the porcino will become lumpy.

Beat the eggs in a bowl with a shot of milk, some salt and pepper. Pour the egg mixture in the skillet and place everything in the (preferably preheated) oven. You just want the egg to become firm, at a temperature around 150° it’ll take around 10 minutes.

Serve the frittata with wholegrain bread and some mountains cheese. If you want, sprinkle some fresh thyme on the frittata and add a drizzle of olive oil.

Porcini pappardelle

Cook the pappardelle in salted water until al dente. In the meantime, prepare the pasta sauce.

For the sauce you need some porcini (I used about 3 medium sized  ones), half an onion, a clove of garlic, two big sprigs of parsley, 200 ml cream, salt and pepper.

Fry the chopped onion and garlic in a pan until translucent and tender. Then add the sliced porcini and fry for a few minutes.

Add the cream and spoon in some of the pappardelles cooking water (3-4 spoons). You want the sauce to become smooth and silky. The pasta will suck up a lot of the sauces liquid, so try to keep the sauce not too thick. Eventually spoon in some more cooking water. Season with salt and pepper.

When the pappardelle are cooked, drain them, then mix them with the porcini sauce and the chopped parsley. Enjoy this  easy but tasty autumn dish, close your eyes and you’ll think you stand in the middle of a forest, a porcino right next to you, waiting to be picked. When I cooked this dish today I was so hungry that I forgot to take a picture of my plate. So you best just imagine a picture of what I ate today when you close your eyes and have the just described  hallucinogenic porcini experience…