A few days ago, after re-subscribing to the New York Times Cooking Section, I saw an attractive recipe for Mushroom Bourguignon by Melissa Clark. If you’ve read this blog over time, you may have noticed that three of my favorite things are wild mushrooms, pasta, and Burgundy wine. This recipe was a brilliant opportunity to enjoy all three together, so last night I made the dish, and I served it on freshly-homemade Black Pepper Fettuccine.

Recipe

The meal was fabulous.  I can add just a few notes here.  The recipe was easy to follow.  A fringe benefit was learning how to peel those pesky Pearl Onions with ease.  I used two large pots to brown all the mushrooms and onions at the same time.  One was my large Bourgeat sautéuse, and the other was the Le Creuset Bouillabaisse enameled cast iron pot.  They both worked well, but — to my surprise —  the Le Creuset did it better.  It’s a monster pot — 7.25 qt. capacity and it weighs 8.5 lbs. without the lid, 14 lbs. with it.

Then, of course, were the wines.  Oh, the wines….   I pulled out of the cellar a 1995 Nuits-St.-Georges by Robert Chevillon, to be used as the wine for braising the mushrooms.  Authentic and extremely good.  Even better, was the 1994 St. Joseph, by Pierre Gaillard, pictured above.  I believe I bought this over 20 years ago from Cynthia and Bob Hurley, the importers and superb French wine aficionados.

The pasta was simple.  Plenty of crushed black pepper, mixed with 104 g. of ’00’ Italian flour, 1 extra large egg, and 1 Tbs. of top quality extra virgin olive oil.  Spun in the small Cuisinart until it forms the dough, it was kneaded, rolled out, and cut into noodles in about 25 minutes.  It made just enough for the two of us, with nothing leftover.

Credits to those who helped make this so good: 

Melissa Clark, Cynthia Hurley, Pierre Gaillard, Idylwilde Farms (mushroom selection)