pasta boscaiola: pasta with mushrooms, bacon, and tomato cream sauce

Maybe it’s the smoky campfire flavor vibe. Maybe it’s that its name translates in Italian to “lumberjack.” Whatever it is, pasta boscaiola—the woodsman’s pasta—is almost deliberately designed to be Pasta for Boys, confirmed by the response of IRL boys who tested it: deeming it both rich and complicated, but not too high maintenance. If you are someone looking to make a rugged pasta for a rustic night in, this is a worthwhile contender. And if you are a boy looking to learn a good boy-recipe, I highly suggest putting this in your back pocket with your other boy tools.

Assertive, humble, refined, and rustic at once, boscaiola may come from the woods, but he cleans up remarkably well for dinner. Popular throughout the Tuscan countryside, its name refers to the practice lumberjacks had of gathering wild forest mushrooms in little satchels during their workday, which they would bring home to their wives to cook into dishes like this with whatever else happened to be around the house in what I imagine to be one pot by an open hearth fire.

For that reason, the rest of the dish beyond mushrooms is open to interpretation, and each person’s style informs what’s “authentic” to them. Some recipes use a lot more cream than this one, to the point where some of the sauces are actually white (similar to alla norcina); personally, I like it to be more tomato forward. You can use sausage or bacon—I posted this version with sausage and vodka years ago—or just stick to mushrooms, which you’re welcome to do here as well. Some people add olives or peas, but to me, these would ruin it. Any kind of wine you have open will work just fine, though I like white because it creates a brighter orange color. Parm, however, is non-negotiable.

Adapted from Serious Eats.

RECIPE

Intensely savory, smoky, meaty, and earthy, pasta boscaiola—”the woodsman’s pasta”—is rich with tomatoes and fancy wild mushrooms and cream, ready to keep you warm like an Italian lumberjack in a forest cottage on a cold winter night.

Effortful time: 25 minutes

Total time: just over an hour

Makes enough sauce for 1 lb. of pasta

you need

  • 6 slices thick-cut bacon, sliced into 1/2” thick strips

  • 1 tbsp. + 1 tsp. extra virgin olive oil

  • 18 oz mixed mushrooms, preferably a mix of shiitake, oyster, trumpet, or portobello, roughly torn into bite-sized pieces

  • 1 small shallot, minced

  • 3 garlic cloves, minced

  • 2 tbsp tomato paste

  • 1/2 tsp. chili flakes (or 1 tsp. Calabrian chilis in oil), optional

  • 3/4 cup dry white wine

  • 28 oz. strained (puree) or crushed tomatoes

  • ~8 sprigs of fresh thyme, stripped and leaves minced

  • 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream

  • 1/4 cup grated parmigiano cheese, plus more for serving

  • Salt and freshly cracked pepper, to taste

  • 1 lb. tube-shaped pasta, like penne or rigatoni

MAKE IT

  1. Get prepped. Slice your 6 pieces of bacon into nice even strips about 1/2” wide. Roughly tear all 18 oz. of mushrooms by hand; tearing them creates nice rustic, craggly edges for texture, but if you have any that are too meaty, like trumpet stems can be, you can chop those up. Mince a shallot and 3 cloves of garlic, and strip the thyme from 8 stems: you can do this easily by gripping the first thyme frond closest to the base with your thumb and forefinger, and very quickly yanking down the stem so that the leaves come off. It takes a little practice! Start boiling some salty water for pasta in a large pot after you’ve finished all the other prep steps.

  2. Cook the bacon. Heat 1 tsp. of olive oil in a 12” heavy skillet over medium-low heat. Add the bacon strips and cook them to slowly render out all the fat until crispy and brown, about 15 minutes. Remove these with a slotted spoon and set aside.

  3. Brown the mushrooms. Turn the heat in the skillet up to medium. Swirl the remaining 1 tbsp. of olive oil into the remaining bacon fat, then add all the torn mushrooms (don’t salt them at this time). Let them cook and release all their water until the mushrooms take up half the space they did at the start, about 10 minutes. Salt them, then turn up the heat to medium-high and let them sear, another 5-7 minutes or until the edges are browned and crispy.

  4. Sauté the aromatics. Leave all the mushrooms in the skillet and scoot them over to leave a cooking surface open, then turn the heat back down to medium low. If you have no oil left in the pan, you may need to add a tiny bit more in this space; I was able to “pool” some oil into the empty spot. Use this area to very quickly sauté the shallot and garlic, about 30 seconds until very fragrant. Add the tomato paste and mash it up until it starts to smell caramelized. Deglaze everything with 3/4 cup of white wine, which will immediately soak into the mushrooms and evaporate.

  5. Build the sauce. Pour in a 28 oz. can of tomatoes, and season with chilis (if you want), the fresh thyme, a pinch more salt, and pepper. Fold the bacon back in. Simmer this partially covered (to prevent splatters) over very low heat for a minimum of 45 minutes until the sauce loses some of its bright red color and starts to burnish.

  6. Put your pasta in and get ready to finish up your sauce. Plan to cook this 2 minutes less than the package directions say.

  7. Finish and serve. Add the cream and stir well to combine; this will change the color of the sauce to that nice autumn orange. Using a slotted pasta spoon, transfer the very al dente pasta directly into the skillet, then scoop some pasta water from the pot and add it to the sauce pan. Continue cooking this 2 more minutes, allowing the pasta to soak up the sauce. Stir in the 1/4 cup of grated parmigiano and adjust with more pasta water if needed to make sure the sauce is glossy, creamy, and not too thick. Scoop into bowls and serve with more cheese.

pastaA @ italian enoughtuscan-umbrian, fall, cozyComment