I’ve been on my roll and I’d like to try and make at least one saved recipe a week to try and test out while I’m here working from home since I have a little extra time while I’m waiting for pages to come in. This week I decided to try Claire’s Pasta with Mushrooms and Prosciutto except I went for pancetta instead, just because pancetta works better for me when I’m cooking.

This is a pretty simple dish which I appreciate. I cooked my pancetta, removed it from the pan and then cooked down my mushrooms. Claire uses nice wild mushrooms but I haven’t made a trip to Wegmans in a hot minute so I just went with baby bellas. Minor alterations but the spirit of the dish lives on. Once the mushrooms cooked down, I added shallots, chicken stock (store-bought since we still have some in the fridge waiting to be used) and then eventually I added my pasta water and spaghetti. Claire uses a really beautiful pappardelle but we have two boxes of spaghetti in the pantry and as I said, small alterations. I added the cream, finished with some butter, and topped with some reserved pancetta! Finito.

This was a really nice creaminess but I worried that it was a little too loose and might’ve done better reheated when the sauce had time to cool and solidify a little more. I was still happy with the consistency and the flavor though. The pancetta was a little gamey which I suppose I should remind myself of because in this case, it would’ve probably been nicer with the prosciutto. This hit the spot for something creamy though and I’m happy with the choice to try it. I’m not sure that it was outstanding enough to add to my recipe book but It was a solid cook for sure.