Thursday, September 20, 2007

Pasta Alla Boscaiola for Presto Pasta Night #30!


Wow, Presto Pasta Nights has hit the big three- oh and everyone is still happy! Me most of all! I'm finally getting into a rhythm and I thought I'd share not only a great dish this week, but a bit of a story about tenacity or something like it....

Way back in the land of Toronto, I bought some dried porcini mushrooms and used them for something or other. But in the package (and I wish I could remember which brand so I could give them credit) was the recipe for Spaghetti Alla Boscaiola. I'm sure there's some significance to the name, but they didn't share the story...just an awesome dish. So I kept the recipe which sounded simple enough and meant to make it that week, which then became the following week, and so on, and so on...

Well ,we packed up and moved to Halifax and the recipe came along for the ride. I found it when we were staying with Joanna & Ezra and meant to make it ....somehow...the time flew by and we packed up our stuff again...recipe too...and moved to our new home.

Finally, I made the dish tonight. It's not the prettiest looking dish I've ever made, but it is rich and tasty and did I mention rich and tasty? Adding some of the soaking liquid really added to the earthy mellow flavor of the sauce. But don't take my word for it....just take the recipe.

Pasta Alla Boscaiola

Related Links:

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Boscaiolo means woodsman, so with the a at the end it would be the feminine version, although I've never heard that there was one.

A boscaiolo does all the forest stuff. They handle undergrowth, cut trees, saw wood, hunt for mushrooms, too. Which is why most boscaiolo recipes have mushrooms in them.

My neighbor is a retired boscailolo, but still anyone who wants something woodsy done asks him. He knows when the chestnuts are ready and where the best ones are. He knows how many days after a rain to look for mushrooms and what the temperature needs to be for them to appear. I recently asked him if he would take my students on mushroom hunts and he said, "Yes, but only of the weather has been right, because it's otherwise a waste of time."

He's also the person who cuts my wood for me. When I have a natural foods question, I ask Ivano, forever the boscaiolo.

Ruth Daniels said...

Judith, thanks for the info..most informative as usual. Perhaps the Boscaiola refers to his wife...forever in the kitchen. It did taste delicious.