Spaghetti with mushrooms and bacon

How to make spaghetti with mushrooms and bacon .

To take advantage of this great mushroom season, I propose an Italian recipe,  spaghetti with funghi, pancetta and pepitocino.

Another classic that we usually prepare at home. With this recipe you can not make excuses of the type ” I do not have time to cook “, because in 25 minutes and with four things in the fridge you have a homemade food to lick your fingers.

The basic ingredients are pasta, bacon, mushrooms and the usual ones for a good stir-fry (onion, celery, garlic, parsley and pepitocino), then if you want you can further enrich the dish with other flavors, aromas and textures.

Mushrooms are a true passion in central Italy . In Umbria, the Marches, Lazio, Tuscany and in Maremma,  lovers of this world travel the forests from the end of summer to the end of autumn.

As in Spain, you will find  chanterelles, morels, chanterelles, armillary  and many other species, but without doubt  the boletus or porcine  is the favorite fungus of Italy.

Their caps are stuffed, cut into thin sheets accompanying meat dishes and well minced they enrich sauces like those of these spaghetti. It is an ingredient that is in season and we have to take advantage of it while it lasts.

We are going to use the appropriate pasta for this recipe, a long Garofalo pasta, the Spaguetti à Figliata which are made with durum wheat semolina with a rough surface that helps to grip the sauce well. They are perfect for this type of recipe.

And don’t forget the spicy touch of the recipe, the combination of garlic and pepitocino (chili, chilli, chili …) gives an intense, spicy or very spicy flavor if we want. I think I have already convinced you, do not hesitate to prepare it and I hope you like it.

Cleaning the mushrooms. Preparation

1. Chop the onion and celery. It is best to cut them into very small pieces so that they melt in the sauce. In the end we will hardly notice the texture of any of the ingredients but we will notice its flavor. Garlic is best cut very finely or almost mashed with the garlic masher.
2. We will do the same with the mushrooms but in slightly larger pieces, because as they have a lot of water they will remain in nothing and we want them to be seen on the plate.
3. Cut the thistle mushrooms into sheets and the rest into quarters.
4. In the case of Boletus, the first thing we will do is peel the trunk a little and clean all the land well. If they are healthy we will have finished, otherwise we will remove the soft or very hollow, ugly or insane parts.
5. If we see that the boletus hat has a small yellow sponge, we would remove it, if it is white it would already be edible.
6. The easiest way to make them fit evenly when cutting them is to make a horizontal cut at the base and roll.

Preparation of the sauce for the pasta

1. In a large saucepan or frying pan, pour a good splash of extra virgin olive oil. When it is hot add the onion, celery and minced garlic.
2. We fry everything for 10 minutes so that the flavors mix well.
3. We add the bacon cut into more or less equal pieces. Fry for 3-4 minutes with the rest of the vegetables.
4. At the end of everything we add the whole pepitocino (so that it is easy to remove) that gives that spicy touch to the mushrooms (chili or chili is also worth it).
5. We can only add the chopped mushrooms and stir well with a wooden spoon, quickly and over high heat.
6. Season with salt and pepper and sprinkle with the freshly chopped parsley. We stir everything well so that the flavors come together for another 2-3 minutes. We reserve and prepare the pasta.

Preparation of spaghetti

1. Once we have the mushroom sauce ready, we start with the pasta, the sauce should always wait for the spaghetti and not the other way around.
2. We heat in a saucepan a liter of water for every 100 g. pasta, is the recommended measure per person.
3. These proportions, which are normally indicated on the packaging, help the paste not stick together. And always try to use a large casserole, the largest in your kitchen.
4. When it begins to boil in spurts we add 1 generous handful of salt, about 2 level tablespoons for every 500 grams of pasta. Next we add the pasta all together.
5. Stir with a wooden spoon so that the spaghetti does not stick and are loose.
6. On the back of the pasta package, the cooking time always comes, we must be guided by these instructions because for each type it is different, in this case it is 9 minutes.
7. This way we will get what is called pasta “al dente” or at its right point, although a great tip is to try it almost at the end, just in case the packaging deceives us. Once the time has elapsed, drain the pasta immediately and combine it with the sauce.

Final presentation of spaghetti with mushrooms

1. Add the freshly made spaghetti to the mushroom and bacon sauce, mix everything with a spoon so that the flavors come together. Sprinkle a little more with chopped fresh parsley and we have it ready, a new dish of yummy.
2. Optionally we add a little cheese, the Parmesan is luxurious. Enjoy it!

If you do not want to miss a detail on how to prepare this recipe for spaghetti with mushrooms and bacon , click on the photos in the step by step.