So I had a bit of a panic the other night and had to find the quickest thing I could possibly cook after work, and my go-to book on occasions like this is Nigella Express.
To make this for four you will need: 225g chestnut mushrooms, 80ml extra virgin olive oil, 1tbs Maldonado salt, 1 small clove of garlic, juice and zest 1 lemon, 1tsp fresh thyme leaves, 500g linguine, fresh parsley, 2-3 tbs freshly grated Parmesan, and pepper. As usual I halved the ingredients because I was just cooking for the two of us.
The method for this is simplicity itself. Mix the oil, salt, garlic, lemon zest and juice, and thyme in a large bowl. Finely slice the mushrooms and mix them up in the solution and leave to steep for a bit.
Cook the linguine like it says on the packet, drain it but retain some of the cooking water and put the pasta and water in with the mushrooms. When I got to this stage I wished I’d used a bigger bowl, so I lobbed mine all back in the pan to toss around.
Toss everything together, add the parsley, Parmesan and grind in some pepper and serve.
I really wanted to like this, but I just didn’t. Firstly I went slightly wrong, I completely forgot the lemon and left everything steeping in salty thyme-ey oil for 10 minutes until I remembered and added it. The main problem was that it was just far too salty. Crazily salty. My lover could only finish half of his and that half went straight through him, I finished it but I didn’t feel to good after.
I wanted to try it again with even less salt, but my lover has banned me from making it again! Can’t win em all…
Nigella Express, by Nigella Lawson (Chatto & Windus 2007 ISBN 9780701181840)
New Recipe Night 