- Ugh, mushrooms. - Everybody loves mushrooms, right? - I like mushrooms. I'll take it. - Yeah.
- Mario, seriously? What were you thinking
with that commercial? - What? It's supposed to be funny. - Can someone pass the bread? - Yeah, but what's with the outfits? Plumbers wearing white gloves? - That's right. You
gotta have a trademark. Gotta stand out. - [Babish] Hey, what's up guys? Welcome back to "Binging with Babish." With this week we're taking
a look at the mushroom pasta from "The Super Mario Bros." movie. No, not the fungus from
the one with Bob Hoskins, the new one in which titular hero vocally and vehemently despises mushrooms. So we're gonna start with a pretty standard
mushroom cream sauce and then see what other
forms this fungus can take in an effort to ensure that
Mario eats his mushrooms. First up, the age-old question, "Should you wash your mushrooms?" And the answer is up to you. Washing discolor the mushrooms
and prolong their cook time. But if you're not in the mood to go all archeologist with a brush, it's not gonna be the end of the world. I have here eight ounces
of white button mushrooms whose stems I am trimming
and caps I am thinly slicing. Then over on the stove top, I'm going with a two-pot configuration. I know that one-pot pasta
might make you look cool, but two pots is gonna
give you more control and better results. I'm starting by heating a tablespoon each extra virgin olive
oil and unsalted butter, adding the mushrooms once
the foaming subsides, and then cooking them for anywhere from five to seven minutes until their moisture is
squeezed out and evaporated. Then I'm adding 1/2 a
small minced shallot, saute for another two to three minutes, and, depending on your pasta's cook time, adding it to your pot
of salted boiling water. Then I'm crushing in two cloves of garlic, giving that a little bit of
heat for about 30 seconds. Deglazing the pan with 1/3
of a cup of dry white wine. Then adding an optional quarter teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, a not so optional sprinkle
of fresh chopped parsley, and a very not optional 3/4
of a cup of heavy cream. And back to optionality, I'm gonna add the zest of one lemon. I'm bringing this up to a gentle
simmer over medium low heat and allowing it to cook
and thicken a little bit before adding the pasta when
it's one to two minutes shy of your desired degree of doneness. I'm also gonna add some of our still boiling pasta cooking water, a 1/4 cup at a time, as
we gently simmer the pasta for another two to three minutes until it's reached a state of completion. Seasoning with kosher salt
and freshly ground pepper to taste, and continuing to add pasta water if things get too thick or gloopy. Then I'm killing the heat entirely and adding about a 1/2 cup of freshly grated Parmesan cheese. This is for sure gonna make things gloopy, so don't be afraid to
add more, you guessed it, pasta cooking water, which is gonna help thin the
sauce as well as emulsify it, make it glossier, and help
it stick to the pasta. Garnish with more cheese
and chopped parsley. And there you have it, a
classic mushroom cream sauce. Every bit as rich and
decadent as it looks, but not nearly as mushroom-y as it looks. If you ask me, Mario's being kind of wimp, especially for a grown
man with a mustache. So next I say that we set out to make the mushroom-iest pasta possible. Starting with six ounces of one of the mushroom-iest
mushrooms, shiitakes, likewise stemmed and thinly sliced, and four ounces of oyster mushrooms pretty much just for variety's sake. I'm not gonna forget to
lightly salt my oil this time, which is just gonna help draw moisture out of the mushrooms more quickly. And I'm sauteing these guys likewise for five to seven minutes
until they're lightly browning and forming a nice fond
in the bottom of the pot. Scoop things to the side, add the shallot, saute for another three minutes. Crush in a clove of
garlic, another 30 seconds. And this time, I'm deglazing with three
tablespoons of sherry, a fortified wine that plays
real nice with mushrooms. Once that's cooked off, rather than cut the mushrooms with cream, I'm gonna turn the mushrooms into cream. Adding 2/3 of the mushrooms to a blender, along with three tablespoons
of unsalted butter, two tablespoons of white miso, and about a 1/4 cup of Parmesan cheese. This mixture might be
a little bit too thick to blend on its lonesome, so don't be afraid to add
some of our oldest ally, pasta cooking water. Did I mention that I
started cooking the pasta? I started cooking the pasta. And with its help, I'm blending the majority of our mushrooms into a creamy sauce, which I'm gonna add back to the pan with the remaining mushrooms, bring it up to a bare simmer, and immediately adding the sketti, which is hopefully within a
minute or two of doneness. We're gonna cook everybody together for two to three minutes,
yada, yada, yada. Same thing as before, pasta water. But this time, I'm also gonna
have the juice of 1/2 a lemon two teaspoons of chopped
tarragon, more Parmesan, more PCW. Mixing thoroughly and seasoning
to taste with kosher salt and freshly ground pepper before serving. And there you have it, mushroom cream sauce that's
actually made of mushrooms. And shut my mouth, I'm actually kind of
with Mario one this one. A little bit too mushroom-y. Plus let's face facts,. bucatini is hard to eat and
is, therefore, dead to me. So instead, let's try making maybe my
favorite pasta of all time, Pasta alla Norcina. To make an approximation
of the Norconian sausage, I'm adding one teaspoon of
freshly chopped rosemary to a 1/2 pound ground pork in addition to a 1/4 teaspoon
freshly grated nutmeg, one crushed clove of garlic, a 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes, a 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, and a 1/4 teaspoon of fennel seeds that I'm going to lightly
process in a mortar and pestle before adding to the pork. I'm giving it the old
meat melding massage, both evenly distributing the spices and making the pork more uniform so that it's easier to crumble. Let that sit for 10 minutes. And lest we forget, there's
mushrooms in this recipe. Eight ounces of cremini
mushrooms, which, as you can see, I washed and thereby discolored, but it kind of hardly matters because these guys are
getting finally chopped and then sauteed until browned,
so it like cancels out. First, I'm gonna cook the pork
in a little bit of olive oil, letting it brown a little
bit before mashing it up into bite-sized pieces. Letting those brown until they're
very nearly cooked through scooping them out and
draining them on paper towels. Then in the remaining pork fat and fond, we're gonna cook our creminis. Lightly salting them and
cooking until their moisture has been released and evaporated. About halfway through, I'm
gonna start cooking our pasta. This time, I'm going with mezzi rigatoni, or little 1/2 tonis. Then once the mushrooms
are starting to brown, I'm crushing in another clove of garlic, letting that saute for about
30 seconds or until fragrant. Then deglazing the pan, I'm going back to a 1/3 of
a cup of dry white wine, allowing that to cook
off until evaporated. Then adding about 1/2 my intended parsley. I like some of the parsley to get heat so it isn't so vegetal. Then we're adding our 3/4
of a cup of heavy cream and our sausage back to the party. Letting these guys cook together
for one to three minutes, scooping our pasta out of the boiling pan and into the simmer-er, and, of course, cutting things with plenty
of pasta cooking water, a 1/4 cup at a time. Keep
this at a bare simmer. Let the pasta finish cooking in the sauce. Finish with a little bit more parsley. And this time, 1/2 a cup
of Pecorino Romano cheese. Making sure to cut things with plenty of the
rigatoni boiling medium, running outta things to call this stuff, but it bears repeating because it's as important
as it is delicious. Speaking of which, it's time to plate up. More freshly grated cheese, more freshly deconstructed parsley. And there you have it, far and away, one of my favorite pastas,
Pasta alla Norcina. It might just seem like another variation of the previous two, and it kind of is. But the herb-y, spicy sausage is really what makes this dish. Plus the mushrooms are cut
into little tiny pieces. No, pick a nose out, Mario. (upbeat music)
M-m-m-m-Mario???
I feel this video is much closer to his older bwb ones, and I liked it!