Mushroom rigatoni with egg yolk and garlicky breadcrumbs

Serves 2

Ingredients:

For Breadcrumb:

100g freshly made breadcrumbs

1.5 Tbls. olive oil

sprinkle of salt

1 small garlic clove

For Pasta:

160g dried rigatoni (80-90g per person)

3 tbls. olive oil

300g mixed mushrooms (wild preferred! if you mushrooms are quite wet, you’ll need more than 300g as the water will evaporate while cooking and you won’t have very much), thick stems trimmed and thinly sliced (cleaned obviously)

75g thinly sliced shallot (about 1 large)

15g minced garlic (about 2 cloves)

1 tsp. picked and chopped thyme

20g butter + 15g for finishing

40ml white wine (a good splash)

1 tbls. lemon juice

2 tbls. creme fraiche

1 egg yolk

1 handful picked parsley leaves, finely chopped

parmesan

salt and black pepper

Method:

First, make toasted breadcrumbs. Preheat oven to 175C. Use day old bread if you have it. If using sourdough or something with a thick crust, remove the crust before processing. If using something with a thin crust like ciabatta leave it on and simply dice up the bread. Pulse in a food processor until you achieve small crumbs and then lay then out on a sheet tray. (If you don’t have a food processor, dry the bread pieces in a low 140C oven until you can crush it in your hand to achieve crumbs, they won’t take as long to toast in the oven because they will already be dry). Toss with olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and toast until golden, about 10 minutes. Mix it every couple of minutes to ensure even browning. Remove from the oven and when hot, microplane in one clove of garlic and mix to combine. Set aside. This can be done ahead.

Put your pot of water on to boil for the pasta and season it well with salt.

Heat a large heavy skillet to high and add 3 tbls. olive oil. Add the mushrooms. Spread them out and then DO NOT TOUCH them for 3-4 minutes. This will allow them to brown. Then, add a sprinkle of salt to season them and stir them around but try not to touch them too much. Cook a further 3-4 minutes and then scrape them out of the pan into a nearby bowl and set aside. Add in the 20g of butter and reduce heat to medium. Add shallots, garlic and thyme with another pinch of salt. Cook this for about 3 minutes until they are beginning to caramelise. Next, add in the white wine and allow the alcohol to cook out and then add back in the mushrooms. At this stage turn this pan off and drop your pasta in the boiling salted water. Rigatoni typically takes 8-9 minutes but cook to “al dente”. For the last minute drop the whole egg into the boiling water to kill off any bacteria that might be on the shell, then remove it and set aside.

Add cooked pasta into the mushroom mix which has now been put back on high heat. Add 1.5 ladles of pasta water and the remaining 15g of butter into the pan and stir to combine. Toss it together until this mixture has thickened and is coating the pasta. Then turn the heat off and add the egg yolk (which you have already separated from the white) directly into the pan and stir immediately. This will thicken the pasta sauce. Toss together with parsley, and finish with the lemon juice and crème fraiche.

Garnish with parmesan, black pepper and a handful of garlicky breadcrumbs.

Serve HOT.