We’re very lucky, we live in a great location. Almost right outside our front door there are three fruit and veg sellers and just down the road is a Bio/Organic Supermarket. Everything is within walking distance and the underground subway is almost on our door step too, which is great because we don’t have a car. Every night Mike walks past the fruit and veg stalls and reports back on the nice mushrooms they have and what he would like to eat. This week he said they had really nice King Brown Mushrooms (also known as King Oyster Mushrooms or Kräuterseitling in German) and I decided to use them. This recipe was inspired by a recipe in My Kitchen by Pete Evans, a book I also managed to pick up at the book fair – pretty sure the sellers were pocketing the money as they weren’t meant to sell them. Of course his recipe was not vegan so I tweaked a few things.
I love simple pasta dishes. This is super simple and doesn’t take much longer to cook than the pasta takes to boil. This is a really earthy pasta. It is hard to describe the flavour. The mushrooms and rosemary give it a really, grounded, forest, Autumn flavour – if you can imagine that. We also use a Multigrain wholemeal pasta, which would add to this flavour. The mushrooms provide a nice chewy texture, similar to squid, but don’t overcook them as they can go a little sour. They are not overpowering and the smokiness of the tofu comes through nicely. We really enjoyed the simple flavours of this pasta and will be cooking it again when the mushrooms look nice.
Serves 2 – easily doubled to serve 4
Ingredients
- 2 tsp oil
- 1 onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1/2 block (250g) smoked Tofu, cut into thin cube/strips
- 3 large king brown mushrooms, cubed
- 75g vegan margarine, splint into 2 equal portions
- 30g pine nuts
- Salt and Pepper
- 1-2 sprigs of Rosemary, finely chopped
- 200g linguine (we love Rapunzel Linguine Multikorn)
Directions
- Cook the pasta to the instructions on the package.
- Heat the oil in a fry pan over low heat and sauté the onion and garlic for 5-10 minutes. Add the smoked tofu, mushrooms and half the butter, continue to cook for 10 minutes or until the tofu and mushrooms are cooked. Season to taste.
- Once the pasta is cooked added it to the mushroom mixture and stir well to make sure the pasta is coated in the mushroom sauce. Divide into 2 bowels.
- In the same pan used to cook the mushrooms and the remaining butter, once it stats to bubble and forth add the rosemary; cook for 1-2 minutes. Pour this over the bowls of pasta and mix through. You can also cook the butter, add to the pasta and sprinkle the rosemary over the top, without cooking it. Serve with some more cracked pepper.
