Shopping and eating California is always a revelation. Yesterday we made a quick stop at the Sacramento Food Co-op, which happened to be right off the highway on our commute from Venice in Southern California to the Burning Tango Festival in Northern California.
The food here has a much higher quality of flavor and a much fresher variety. Take the California strawberry, so cliche right? Amazing! They made our car smell like a bouquet, even before they started to warm up in our boiling car.
We also saw lots of cool things at the co-op you can’t get in Michigan, radicchio, finger limes, kumquat, donut preaches…and shaggy mane mushrooms!
We decided to make a simple meal featuring the shaggy mane mushroom. This is something that relatively is spoil proof, as we were driving 10 hours and needed to make a quick camp meal when we arrived.
Shaggy Manes and Shiitakes with Wide Egg Noodles
8 oz egg noodle pasta
1 shallot, diced
2 shaggy manes, chopped into 1/2 inch pieces
8 oz Shiitakes, thinly sliced
3 cloves of garlic, diced
2 Roma tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup olive oil
Salt to taste
Start heating a large pan of water to boil the pasta.
Sauté garlic, shallot, and shiitake mushrooms in 3 TBS olive oil for 3-5 min until the shallot is soft. Add the shaggy manes, tomatoes and then salt to taste. Remove from the heat, cover, and set aside.
Season the pasta water with 1 TBS salt and then boil the pasta just until slightly al dente, Before draining add 1/4 cup of the cooking water to the mushroom, tomato mixture.
Drain the pasta then add to the pan with sauté mixture. Toss to coat noodle.
Salt to taste if needed and top with the remaining TBS of olive oil.
Serve immediately.