Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Habanero Pasta with Maitake Mushrooms

 

After an extremely successful trip to the Strip District, Andy and I were able to create an absolutely delicious meal. The best part was that it only took about five minutes and used a few ingredients! We love cooking meals together, but somehow it always takes us much longer than needed. This quick meal was a nice change.

The first main ingredient was this super-spicy habanero linguine from the public market. We didn’t test it before buying it, so when we got back we were shocked at how awesomely spicy it was. It seriously burned!

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Strangely, this pasta isn’t made locally (I thought everything at the public market was), but the choices of pasta from this vendor was really great. Lemon basil, red pepper, etc. Yum!

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The second great find of the day was this giant hunk of Maitake mushrooms, also known as hen of the woods. This was also bought at the public market from a man that sells different types of mushrooms. At $16 per pound, it was pretty pricey, but the half pound that we bought made two seriously large portions.

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This was really lovely and very fresh. It even held up after sitting in my car for a few hours. According to the man who sold us the mushrooms, all of their supply comes from Kennett Square, PA. Kennett Square is outside of Philly and is the mushroom capital of the world. The town smells like mushrooms…seriously.

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I chopped it up into large bite-sized pieces. I didn’t know how much the pieces would shrink while cooking, so I wanted to keep them pretty big.

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Without a side of veggies, I thought it would work to just slip some spinach into the pasta. We also put a dab of minced garlic with the mushrooms while they cooked. I sautéed the mushrooms for only about three minutes, which was the general consensus online for cooking Maitake.

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It all came together very quickly! All of a sudden we were out on my patio enjoying the nice weather and delicious meal.

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The pasta lost a little spice from being cooked, but it was still pretty fiery. I loved the mushrooms and spinach together too – it was very earthy and super filling.

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Definitely try out these vendors in the Public Market in the Strip District. An almost gourmet meal at home for way less!

3 comments:

  1. I am so intrigued by this pasta! This looks like something I would adore!

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  2. what a great meal. that pasta is also intriguing me! I'd love to get my hands on some!

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  3. i am a farmer at heart but live in the suburbs. growing these would make this inner farmer very happy.

    spore syringe

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