Spelt spaghetti with wild mushrooms and Parmesan cream

Spaghetti di farro con funghi e crema di parmigiano

By: Katie & Giancarlo Caldesi
From: Venice
Serves: 4
Photographer: Helen Cathcart

Paolo Lazzari, who runs a restaurant called Vini da Gigio, loves his food and is justly proud of his wine list. He runs the restaurant with his sister, Laura, and chef Davide. They took it on from their late parents to keep on the family tradition. Paolo is wheat intolerant so many of the dishes are low in gluten. Yet he is able to eat spelt (an ancient wheat). We tried his spelt pasta made with chanterelles and a cream of Parmesan made from the 24-month old variety, which is crumbly, dry and full of intense flavour. I really like this cheese cream and in fact it is a useful sauce for all sorts of dishes. A Venetian luxury would be to top with some shaved black truffle.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
320g	dried spaghetti, such as spelt, wholewheat or white
5 tablespoons	olive oil
2	garlic cloves, peeled and lightly crushed
sprig	rosemary
5 sprigs	thyme
250g	chestnut or wild mushrooms, sliced, such as chanterelles
10g	dried porcini, soaked in 100 ml water for 15 minutes, (optional)
	extra-virgin olive oil, to serve

For the parmesan cream

Quantity	Ingredient
50g	parmesan, finely grated
100ml	cream

Method

Put the spaghetti into a large pan of fiercely boiling well-salted water and stir through. Cook according to the packet instructions. Heat the oil in a frying pan over a high heat, add the garlic, rosemary and 4 sprigs of the thyme and cook for a 2 minutes. If using the porcini take them out of the water when soft and slice. Add all the mushrooms to the pan and fry them for 5–7 minutes until cooked through and the water has evaporated from them. Remove the pan from the heat and discard the sprigs of rosemary and thyme.
To make the cheese cream, melt the Parmesan into the cream in a small pan and keep over a very low heat.
Drain the pasta as soon as it is ready and tip it into the mushroom mixture allowing a little of the cooking water to drip into the sauce to loosen it. Toss through and serve in warm bowls drizzled with the cheese cream, a swirl of extra-virgin olive oil and the rest of the thyme leaves pulled from the stems.