Good morning Ballers!

How is your team’s pre-season going?

It’s week two and we may get up to a full half of some teams starters, so that’s kind of a real goddamn thing.

I’ve got that regular season jonesing going on, I can tell you that. We’re close now. Real close.

 

On a local note, Southern California has this in effect today.

 

What is that you may be wondering?

It’s a goddamn hurricane warning! For Southern California!!!

FOR TODAY!

A FUCKING HURRICANE! 

How do the climate deniers respond to this fucking shit! We’ve never FUCKING NEVER had one of these in effect. EVER! There was a tropical storm that hit LA back in 1939 but this fucker could be full strength on impact.

Yes, the ocean is warmer than it should be out here. That’s why we never get hurricanes because the water is too goddamn cold. If you’ve ever swam in the Pacific out here I’m sure you and your testicles can remember that.

Lovely!

I’ll keep you updated throughout the day.

Son of a bitch!

 

To the food.

You regular readers know of my affinity for mushrooms and boy howdy do we have a dazzler for you today.

Ever fuck around with porcini mushrooms? They have this deep, earthy, woodsy type action going on that is pretty unique to the varietal. 

I’ll let Thespruceeats.com break it down for you:

“Porcini mushrooms, sold both fresh and dried, are prized in Italian and French cuisine. These popular mushrooms (also known as king bolete or cèpe in French) are cultivated in Europe, North America, and parts of Asia, and grow naturally in pine forests at the base of trees. Autumn is porcini season in central Europe, with much of the carefully picked harvest dried for later consumption or export. Fresh porcini are beloved by gourmet chefs and can be sautéed and eaten as a side dish or added to risottos and pasta, while the dried mushrooms add rich flavor to broths and stews.”

In fact today will be the first of two installments where the featured ingredient will be the porcini mushroom. The 2nd part will run next week.

Our dish today is incredibly simple but it yields the most insane results in spite of its simplicity. This meal indeed embraces the core Italian food concept of simple ingredients, simple prep, fantastic outcome.

Let’s do this!

Porcini Mushroom Ragu!

recipe courtesy of ABeuatifulplate.com.

“1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms

¼ cup extra virgin olive oil

1 large onion diced

1 small carrot peeled and finely grated

2-3 tablespoons finely chopped thyme leaves

4 garlic cloves thinly sliced

½ cup dry red wine

1 (28-ounce) can crushed Italian tomatoes

kosher salt

freshly ground black pepper

1 lb dried pasta

finely grated parmigiano-reggiano cheese for serving”

 

Well fuck. This is vegetarian again, isn’t it? I swear to God man, that was not my intention. Just grate on some extra parmigiano-reggiano and you’ll be fine.

This menu starts simply enough. Procure some of these.

Amazon carries them of course. This container holds 3 ounces.

I have so many questions about the company name, “Vigorous Mountains.” I’ll go ahead and leave the salacious commentary to the comments section.

I’m getting “genteel” in my old-ass days.

Let’s take a closer look at the mushrooms.

Them some dry motherfuckers right there. Drier than a prairie dog fart they are.

That’s one ounce of mushrooms but as you’ll see in a bit, what looks like a small portion will change dramatically once they are brought back from the dead.

Serious mushroom re-hydration is required.

Boil some water and pour just enough water to cover the mushrooms.

Let these steep for about half an hour.

While the mushrooms return to a viable and edible state get after that onion. A proper dicing here will work.

After the 30 minutes of soaking have elapsed let’s get a look at the mushrooms.

Look at that broth. Oh we gonna use that shit. 

Pour the olive oil into a pot and start sautéing the onion. Let them sweat down for a good 10 minutes or so.

During those 10 minutes, mince up the fresh thyme.

That is indeed a goodly amount of thyme. Fresh thyme please. It has more floral notes than its dried cousin. It is however a pain in the ass to mince up. There are a lot of little sticks up in there.

Now we get to work on the garlic.

Well shit, as long as you’ve got that knife in your hands, hack up them ‘shrooms!

Look at that yield from 1 ounce of dried mushrooms. That’s good value! These are real meaty looking buggers and I can already smell that woodsy aroma. This dish is going to rule so damn hard!

Now the fun part, we’re going to peel and finely grate the carrot.

Not sure why but that’s a pretty goddamn dazzling picture. Think it’s the contrast between the carrot and the blue plate. Looks kind of like a firework display.

Sexy!

The onion should be nice and cooked down now, so go ahead and toss in the carrot and thyme.

Stir to combine.

Since this dish requires using red wine let me show you what is currently my favorite drinking wine.

Talbott Kali Hart pinot noir. This stuff is just fucking special. It’s also at a pretty decent price point, especially for the product. Love, love, love this stuff. It’s firmly ensconced in my Saturday night pinot noir rotation. It’s robust without being too dry, sweet without being cloying and it has a real clean finish. Doesn’t taste like blood is what I’m getting at.

Yes, we will use this as the red wine in our ragu.

Oh look! We have tomatoes too!

Not as sexy and not exactly Italian tomatoes.. Fuck it let’s move on.

Deglaze the pan with the vino. Time to get the garlic in there too, then finally add in the tomatoes.

In go the mushrooms, the juice from the soaking process along with some salt and pepper, then over a low simmer let cook down, slightly covered, for 45-50 minutes while stirring occasionally. 

That’s it!

Near the end of the simmering session it’s time to cook your pasta.

Yes, store bought this time. It’s getting late in the season man! After this many months of serious kitchen time, also factoring in the fact that I do my walk on the weekends, My ass is starting to get really fatigued. 

Store bought is fine.

Please note; the original recipe called for Bucatini but after checking two stores with zero success it became “Well fuck it, I’ll use linguine instead” time.

How’s about we toss together a quick salad while we’re at it. Yep, the usual. 

Spinach salad with red onion, almonds, strawberries and a balsamic vinaigrette.

Tried a new trick for the garlic bread today. We rehydrated some dried onion to put on the bread along with the garlic.

What the hell. Had ’em and gave it a try. That’s what kitchen experimentation is all about!

Make yourself a plate! I’m getting hungry over here!

Before you even start, I know I need new wine glasses. Every damn time I get new wine glasses the fuckers break while I’m washing them. Guess I’m not known for my subtle grip dexterity.

This dish though?

Flawless execution.

Simple, bright, acidic, complex, hearty, healthy and oh holy shit those mushrooms.

The mushrooms almost have a, I kind of want to say unsweetened chocolate type thing going. You see the bright redness from the tomatoes visually but oh no. This fucker is a PORCINI dish. Period.

The pasta was cooked nice and al dente the spinach salad is always delicious with the homemade balsamic vinaigrette and the little bit of rehydrated onion on the garlic bread was actually a cool new taste on there. Interesting.

You will want a nice glass of red to pair with this baby. Of course I finished the remains of that Pinot pictured tp there.

Serve this shit to royalty. Serve it to impress the family. Make it on date night. The flavor completely belies the ease of making.

Go ahead and show off a bit in the kitchen. NOBODY will complain after they taste this.

 

And that’s all I got for the day.

Remember part 2 of our porcini experimentation is next week and I’ll show you a little versatility to this humble mushroom. It’s damn good too.

Hope to see you back here next week.

Do enjoy the rest of your Sunday and your preseason week 2 game day experience.

I may or not be hunkered down but I’ve got supplies on hand just in case.

This should be an interesting day.

PEACE!