Florence Fabricant's Fettucine with Mushroom Ragù

I'm not one for meat substitutes. Give me steak or don't, but please don't make me pretend that grilled tofu cloaked under some peppercorn sauce is meant to stand in for a juicy, rare side of beef, or that tofu crumble - for Pete's sake - is meant to be eaten by beings, human or otherwise, in an otherwise perfectly acceptable ragù. It's not that I don't like tofu, because I love it, it's just that I prefer it under more honest circumstances (oh, lord, that sounds pretentious). Tofu is gloriously wiggly, perfectly squishy, the curd of beans and nothing else. Steak is juicy and chewy, perhaps tinged with smoke and subtly gamey - nothing else. They each serve their own delicious purpose, and there's no need to confound them. Right?

My point is that I am not one to look for anything other than the real thing. If I'm in the mood for steak, I buy myself a nice one, I sprinkle it with salt, I broil it, and I eat it. If it's steak I'm craving, I'm usually ravenous, trying to fill some deep-seated hunger, some molecular clamoring for iron and protein. So I don't buy a seitan slab, or a portobello mushroom for grilling, because I've learned that if you trick your body like that it ends up resenting you for it. And who wants a resentful body? Not me. Honesty is the best policy.

All of this to say that when I first read Florence Fabricant's recipe for a meatless meaty pasta sauce, I sort of shook my head and moved to turn the page away. But something made me stop, and read again. Minced mushrooms, okay, but then tomato paste and tapenade for ballast and flavor, mmhmm, red wine for depth and body, yes, and fresh pasta to elevate this into something really good, perhaps. Suddenly, I was making a shopping list and planning dinner.

(Alright, I'm easily swayed. I'll give you that.)

And it's not like this holds a candle to a real ragù. No way, no how. But it's not really supposed to. It's its own splendid little sauce, earthy and dark and interesting, one of the fastest meals you'll ever make (now that certainly doesn't compare to a typical Italian meat sauce) and richly satisfying, much to my surprise. You'll finish your plate and find yourself swiping the sides with bread just to pick up all the little extra smears of sauce.

Perhaps you'll even think, who needs meat? I swear I didn't...

Fettuccine with Mushroom Ragù
Serves 4

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves garlic, slivered
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 pound cremini mushrooms, very finely chopped
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon black olive paste (tapenade)
1/3 cup dry red wine
1 tablespoon minced fresh oregano, or 1 teaspoon dried
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
12 ounces fresh fettuccine
Grated pecorino, for serving

1. Heat 2 tablespoons oil in a large skillet. Add garlic and onion and sauté until soft. Add mushrooms and cook over medium heat until they wilt and give up their juices. Do not let juices evaporate. Stir in tomato paste and tapenade. Add wine, cook briefly, then season with oregano, salt and, generously, with pepper. Remove from heat.

2. Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, add fettuccine, stir to separate strands and cook about 3 minutes. Drain. Transfer fettuccine to skillet. Add remaining oil. Cook, gently folding ingredients together, until mushroom mixture has reheated and is evenly mixed with fettuccine. Add salt and pepper if needed. Serve, with cheese on the side.

Comments

[deb]

I completely agree with you. I mean, I have no deep-seated love of steak or anything, but I hate it when people call mushrooms "good for vegetarians because they're meaty." Uh, wha? They're good because they're delicious. I can't wait to try dish--it sounds way more interesting than my typical sauteed pile-o-mushrooms with garlic.

[Leah]

Now I really want a steak with mushrooms.

[Lydia]

I think the problem is with the concept of a "meatless ragu" -- better to call it something other than a ragu, and then we could love it for what it is -- a darned good and rich sauce that doesn't happen to have meat.

[Frank]

"I'm usually ravenous, trying to fill some deep-seated hunger, some molecular clamoring for iron and protein."

I love the way your described that. It's like one of those things where you wish you had written it yourself.

Keep up the good work. =P

[Honeybee]

Yum.

[Jessika]

She could have chosen to call it something other than ragu. "My" version of ragu doesn't hold half of the ingredients she lists in this ragu. That said, it doesn't mean this sauce can't be terrific.

[stickygooeycreamychewy]

This looks like a lovely dish. Two questions, though:

Is there another type of mushroom that would work here? I often can't find the creminis. Also, what kind of tapenade did you use? I have seen jarred ones at the market...or did you make your own?

[RA]

I'm so glad you liked it, Luisa; when I saw the title, I thought, "Ooh, I really hope this one turned out well because it sounds so good..." I am printing this out for next week's menu for sure.

[Luisa]

Deb - "they're good because they're delicious" - exactly! Glad you agree. :)

Leah - heh, I kind of did, too, after writing this...

Lydia - good point! Though I'll admit that mushroom sauce doesn't really sound as appetizing as mushroom ragu.

Frank - thank you!

SGCChewy - cremini mushrooms are the exact same thing as regular white button mushrooms (champignons de Paris). So, by all means substitute those! I didn't make my own tapenade, and bought some at Whole Foods (I think the brand name was Vikos or something like that? It was in the refrigerated section with the refrigerated cheeses and fresh pasta). It wasn't all that great, and if I was the type to have homemade tapenade lying about I would have used that instead... (Or, actually, tracked down French tapenade instead of Greek - there really IS a difference.)

[Marsha]

Another really great thing to do with this sauce, for the true mushroom junkie, is to mix is with some bread crumbs (proportions to personal preference), stuff it in mushroom caps, sprinkle with cheese and bake. omg--I have to make this for dinner tonight!

[ann]

Oh, Oh! I'm a mushroom junkie! Marsha, what a great idea!

I too am really relieved this turned out great b/c like RA up there I saw the title and thought to myself, "oh man, I want that right NOW!"
And I like your policy of not lying to your body. You're totally right, there's enough resentment flying around, why turn my body against me too!

[gemma]

This was delicious. I didn't have the right amount of cremini so ended up substituting half of them with portabella mushrooms (the only other ones available in the supermarket). Then i chopped them TOO finely so the cooked mixture resembled a slurried mess. I could only find fresh spaghetti instead of fresh fettucine and I didn't have olive paste so just threw a couple of olives in the food processor... and this STILL tasted absolutely delicious so I can only imagine what the real thing was like! Thanks for trying this one out for us!

[Luisa]

Marsha - that sounds delicious! How'd it turn out?

Gemma - Ben's brother-in-law once made a mushroom sauce sort of like this one once, then pureed it with an immersion blender and it was INcredible. So, you can never cut mushrooms too finely ;)

[Caroline]

This looks fantastic! I loved your tofu/meat subsitute comments. I like tofu in Asian food but not under the guise of steak sauce.

[Alanna]

Just wanted to let you know that your post is featured on BlogHer today! See http://blogher.org/real-meat-no-real-mushrooms ~ AK

[Luisa]

Caroline - oh, I love love love Tofu in Asian food. Can't get enough of it actually! Soft, firm, marinated, plain, lordy it's good stuff.

Alanna - hooray, thanks for the feature! :)

[lolobstersquad]

couldn´t agree more. The concept of vegan bacon punches my brain full of holes.
The sauce sounds very delicious, but I agree with Lydia, best drop ragù` from the name just in case.

[flashdancejay]

A cremini mushroom is actually a baby portabello. Mushroom cultivars used to only sell the larger portabello strain, until and savvy farmer branded the smaller ones under the name cremini or baby bellas.

[Jonathan Kandell]

Flashdancejay, youre right about crimini being tiny portabello. Since mushrooms are the heart of this sauce, I'd think you'd not want not to use button. However, some mix of other "fancy" ones would likely work--e.g. oyster, shitake, crimini etc. A trick I learned from Chinese cooking is to "stretch" button mushrooms with rehydrated chinese mushroom--dried mushrooms have lots of flavor.

[Jonathan Kandell]

If you consider "ragu" to be meat sauce, then vegetarian versions are silly. But if you think about it, the essence of ragu is the slow cooking condensing the flavors. So a vegetarian version is quite possible if you slowly cook it down--which is different than this recipe.

[Blaise Santianni]

I love your attitude vis-a-vis the tofu. Also your presentation of the ragu and your photography is fantastic. I'm posting mostly cooking videos, but I do have some stills as well. I hope you come visit my site. I will be back here often. I'm trying to figure out what other courses I'd serve with a pork ragu. Any suggestions? Would Italians serve pork ragu as a Prima piatti and then another meat dish??
Blaise

[Luisa]

Blaise - thank you! Italians would indeed serve ragu-sauced pasta as a first course and then something else as a second (roast chicken or rabbit, for example, with potatoes and a salad or cooked greens). But even Italians nowadays consider that to be more of a weekend/holiday kind of meal, since it's quite a lot of food.

[Wynn]

I live in Japan and cooked up a quite simple meat sauce this evening the way my Italian friend taught me. He called it ragu. I am realizing that ragu is a very broad term and have been doing some research. I came across your wonderful description and am very anxious to try your recipe. Here in Japan we have a great variety of wonderful mushrooms! Thank you so much!