Wafū Mushroom Pasta is not made with a cream or a tomato sauce. Its flavour comes from plenty of Asian mushrooms, soy sauce and mirin. Thin strips of nori (roasted seaweed) scattered on the pasta make this pasta even more authentic.
If you omit bacon and butter, you can make it vegan pasta.
Cook time is the time to cook the pasta. Whilst it is cooking, you can prepare and sauté mushrooms. Depending on the pasta you use cook time can be longer than 10 minutes.
Don't forget to see the section 'MEAL IDEAS' below the recipe card! It gives you a list of dishes that I have already posted and this recipe that can make up a complete meal. I hope it is of help to you.
- 200g / 0.4lb dried spaghetti
- 250g / 0.6lb mixed fresh mushrooms (note 1)
- 50g / 1.8oz bacon cut into thin strips (note 2)
- 2 cloves garlic smashed (note 3)
- ¼ tsp dried chilli finely chopped
- 1½ tbsp olive oil
- 1 stem green onion finely chopped
- 6cm / 2⅜” x 12cm / 4¾" yaki nori (roasted seaweed sheet) cut into 3cm / 1⅛" long, 2mm / 3⁄32" wide strips
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Cook pasta as per the instruction on the package. Cooking time should be 1 minute less than the instructed time. Reserve a couple of tablespoons of pasta water before draining.
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Shiitake: Remove the stem and slice thinly into 3mm / ⅛" thick pieces.
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Enoki: Cut the woody stem at the bottom so that you can separate stems easily. Most enoki mushrooms come with quite long stems. Cut them in half to make them 4-5cm / 2" long.
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King oyster/King trumpet: The size of king oyster mushrooms can vary greatly. If they are large like mine, halve them lengthways, then have them vertically before slicing each piece into 3mm / ⅛" thick pieces.
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Shimeji: Cut the bottom of the clustering stems so that each stem can be separated easily. Small and short mushrooms can be grouped together to make them similar size to the large shimeji mushrooms.
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Oyster: Starting from the cap, tear the flesh vertically with fingers into strips.
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Heat olive oil in a frying pan over low heat and add the garlic. Cook the garlic to infuse garlic flavour until brown patches start appearing around the garlic pieces (note 6). Remove the garlic pieces and discard.
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Bring the heat up to medium. Add bacon to the pan and sauté until the fat becomes transparent.
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Add mushrooms and chilli to the pan and reduce the heat to low. Sauté until the mushrooms are wilted and cooked through.
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Add the pasta, all the flavouring ingredients and 1-2 tablespoons of reserved pasta water to the pan. Mix well quickly.
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Transfer the pasta to serving plates, scatter green onion pieces over the pasta, then scatter nori strips on top. Serve while hot.
1. I used shiitake, enoki, shimeji, king oyster, and oyster mushrooms. You don’t have to have many kinds of mushrooms. But if you are using just one kind, I would suggest that you use either shiitake, shimeji, or king oyster.
2. If you want to make this vegetarian, you can omit bacon.
3. Place a clove of garlic on a cutting board and use the side of the knife to flatten the garlic. Make sure that the handle of the knife is positioned outside of the cutting board so that it won’t be in the way when flattening the garlic.
4. If you are not using butter, increase the olive oil by ½ tablespoon.
5. The idea is to cut/slice them into similar sizes so that they cook more easily together and look better when served.
6. I tilt the pan to collect the oil on the edge of the pan to give a sufficient depth to the oil to cover the garlic pieces.
Do not burn the garlic as it will make the oil bitter.
7. Wafu Mushroom Pasta does not take a long time to cook, but if you like you can make the sautéed mushrooms with flavouring ahead of time and store them in the fridge. You can keep them in the fridge for few days.
To make Wafū Mushroom Pasta, cook the pasta as per the instructions, heat up the mushrooms in a frying pan and mix the cooked pasta in. A small amount of pasta liquid might be good to add to the pasta.
8. Nutrition per serving.
serving: 303g calories: 690kcal fat: 28g (43%) saturated fat: 8.7g (43%) trans fat: 0.3g polyunsaturated fat: 3.6g monounsaturated fat: 13g cholesterol: 32mg (11%) sodium: 1114mg (46%) potassium: 838mg (24%) carbohydrates: 88g (29%) dietary fibre: 6.3g (25%) sugar: 8.1g protein: 22g vitamin a: 7% vitamin c: 5.5% calcium: 3.4% iron: 28%