Creamy Mushroom Spaghetti for your pasta craving
MANILA, Philippines — You are always craving for pasta. Small wonder you have started to think that you were an Italian in your previous life.
Apart from the sweet tomato-based Filipino style spaghetti with hotdogs and cheese that is readily available in fast-food restaurants and neighborhood cafés and eateries, you like trying different pasta concoctions.
Your choices vary: from simple Aglio Olio (with olive oil and garlic), classic tomato-based Pomodoro (olive oil, garlic, tomatoes, and basil leaves) and Puttanesca (with olive oil, garlic, olives, tomatoes, anchovies, and capers), olive oil-based Gamberetti (olive oil, garlic, shrimps, chili, tomatoes, white wine, and parsley) and Pesto (olive oil, garlic, basil pesto, pine nuts, and Parmesan cheese, topped with either chicken, shrimps, or slab of fish), to cream-based Truffle Mushroom Pasta (cream, truffle oil, mushrooms, garlic, parsley) and Creamy Garlic Pasta (garlic, olive oil and butter, heavy cream, Parmesan cheese).
Pasta is marvelous indeed. It’s a one-dish meal that supplies the protein with the carbohydrates.
For those who are looking for more cream-based pasta dishes to add to their usual roster, this Creamy Mushroom Spaghetti recipe by Mama Sita’s marketing executive and weekend kitchen warrior Ces Nepomuceno-Gamad should come in handy. She recently cooked a batch for her daughter’s 11th birthday, and it was a hit.
Creamy Mushroom Spaghetti
Ingredients:
4 tbsps. cooking oil
6 cloves garlic, crushed
150 grams mushrooms, sliced or trimmed (shiitake, button, or Korean)
1/2 cup milk
1 can (295 grams) cream of mushroom soup
1 cup pasta water
500 grams spaghetti noodles, cooked according to package instructions
Chopped parsley, for garnish
Procedure:
1. Heat oil in pan over low heat. Add garlic and cook gently until fragrant.
2. Add half of the mushrooms and sauté until lightly browned.
3. Pour in milk and cream of mushroom soup. Stir well until fully incorporated.
4. Add pasta water, and let the sauce simmer until smooth and slightly thickened.
5. Toss in cooked spaghetti noodles, adding more pasta water if needed to achieve a creamy consistency.
6. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.
*Makes 6 to 8 servings.
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