Mushroom Stroganov

Ingredients

• 8 oz uncooked pasta (spaghetti or any other long noodle)
• 12 oz mushrooms (shitake, white, portabello, or maitake)
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 small yellow onion, minced
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp general purpose flour
• 1 cup vegetable broth
• 1 tsp dijon mustard
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 4 tbsp crème fraîche
• 2 tbsp parsley

Method

Salt your pasta water generously — it should taste like the sea — and bring it to a rolling boil. The pasta cooks while you build the sauce, so start it first and don't wait around.

Melt the butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. When it foams and the milk solids turn golden, add the minced onion. Cook until translucent and soft, roughly three minutes — you want no bite left in it. Add the mushrooms. This is the critical move: don't stir constantly. Let them sit in the hot pan for a minute or two, undisturbed, so they develop colour through the Maillard reaction rather than just releasing water. Stir once, then leave again. After about five to seven minutes, the moisture they've released will have mostly evaporated and the edges will be caramelised and dark. This is the flavour foundation for the whole dish.

Add the minced garlic and cook for 30 seconds — any longer and it burns and tastes acrid. Whisk the flour, mustard, paprika, salt and pepper into the cold broth until entirely smooth. No lumps. Pour this into the mushroom pan and stir constantly. The flour will thicken the broth through thickening as the mixture heats, trapping the fat and creating a silky roux-based sauce. This takes about two minutes. You'll see it transform from loose liquid to coating consistency when you run a spoon through it.

Remove from heat. Stir through the crème fraîche. The acid in the cream won't break the sauce because you've finished cooking — there's no heat to scramble it. Drain your pasta and add it directly to the pan with the sauce, folding gently to coat every strand. The starch on the pasta helps the sauce cling, so don't rinse it. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Serve immediately into warm bowls, scattered with fresh parsley. The heat from the pasta will gently warm any sauce that's cooled slightly, but you want to move fast — pasta-sauce is best eaten hot.