Spagetti Alla Boscaiola

One of the biggest challenges I face living in Germany for the past month is its language. Nothing surprising there. The daily communication is getting better by the day but the one thing that still frustrates me most is not able to understand 100% on what´s being said on TV and Radio. Magazines are all in Deutsch, and so does all the cookbooks and magazines which I so dearly miss browsing when back in KL.

So, it is not surprising to say that I spent a fair amount of my time browsing through websites and blogs for inspiration and photos. And just few days ago, I stumbled upon a chance to win a fantastic one year subscription to La Cucina Italiana (US Edition), from What´s For Lunch, Honey and decided to give it a go!

The competition sounds fairly simple, which is to cook and submit an AUTHENTIC Italian Dish from any region, and write why I chose a dish of Tagliatelle Alla Boscaiola from Emilia Romagna. The trickiest part about this competition is finding out where Boscaiola originated from. There seems to have little mention of it except for a listing under Wikipedia but I do remember sampling Boscaiola in Modena many years ago in a little Trattoria managed by a gay couple.

It was the yummiest sauce with all my favourite ingredients in such as fresh mushrooms, parma ham, white wine, garlic, butter, cream, parmegiano, parsley and thyme herb. It is not difficult to see why I chose this.

So, I trace back a little more and found three ingredient in this recipe that´s unique to the region of Emilia Romagna and they are Tagliatelle, Parma Ham and Parmegiano Reggiano Cheese.

I must apologize for substituting Tagliatelle with Spagetti here for I can´t locate any in this small German town right now, but anyway, the other two essential combination of parma ham and sharp parmegiano reggiano cheese married really well. The deglazing method following the sweating of parma ham, mushrooms and garlic left a faint, tantalising spell in the kitchen. After adding some cream in, the sauce turned into a wonderful brown, creamy hue ... all waiting for the pasta to be added in.

Here´s the recipe (serves 4-6)

• 30 grams Butter
• 120 grams Parma Ham, diced
• 2 garlic Cloves, finely chopped
• 300 grams fresh Mushrooms, sliced
• 60 ml dry white Wine
• 375 ml Cream
• 1 teaspoon chopped Thyme
• 50 grams freshly grated Parmegiano Reggiano
• 1 tablespoon chopped Italian Parsley

Method

1. Melt the butter in a large frying pan, add the parma ham and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, or until crisp.
2. Add the garlic and cook for 2 minutes, than add the mushrooms, cooking for a further 8 minutes or until the mushroom sweats.
3. Stir in the wine and cream, and add thyme and bring to a boil.
4. Reduce the heat to a low and simmer for 10 minutes, or until the sauce had thickened.
5. Combine the sauce with your hot tagliatelle, and serve with generous amount of Parmegiano cheese and chopped parsley. Season to taste.