Читать книгу A Long and Messy Business - Rowley Leigh - Страница 17
ОглавлениеStorecupboard Favourites
Pennette with Ceps, Cabbage and Pancetta
Dried mushrooms are no substitute for fresh, but they
are a great product in their own right. Fresh ceps and
morels in particular are totally different from their dried
counterparts. They both have soft, unctuous textures, a
sort of squelchy fleshiness that those who like mushrooms
love and others – especially most young people, in my
experience – recoil from in horror. In addition, both
mushrooms release their distinctive flavours quite slowly
and with a degree of subtlety.
A dried mushroom is quite the reverse. The texture,
even when well soaked, is rarely less than chewy and is
of little interest. The taste, however, is emphatic and
concentrated: it is the reverse of its fresh counterpart
and launches in with dense, rich flavour from the opening
salvo. It is not unknown for chefs to reinforce the flavour
of fresh morels by adding an infusion of dried morels.
To my mind, this destroys the point and robs you of that
lovely moment when the flavour of the fresh mushroom
finally resolves itself. It is the classic proverbial
sledgehammer to crack a nut: I firmly believe in keeping
dried and fresh mushrooms well apart.
Apart from that concentrated intensity of flavour, dried
mushrooms have two other great assets: they are not hard
to find, and they are obtainable throughout the year. In
winter, when exciting fresh ingredients are somewhat
thin on the ground, they are to be valued. Dried ceps,
particularly, add an extra dimension to a beef stew, or a
roast or sautéed chicken, and are an invaluable
storecupboard standby with pasta.
I may have said it before, but I cannot stress too
strongly that with pasta you get what you pay for. Cheap
supermarket pasta becomes soft and tasteless very quickly
and is an insult to a decent sauce. The difference in price
between that and a good brand is barely more than a few
pennies per person, but the gulf in quality is huge.
27
January
