Roasted butternut & mascarpone pasta sauce with mushrooms
A luscious an silky pasta sauce made with roasted butternut and mascarpone served with pan-fried mushrooms, Parmesan, roasted pumpkin seeds and Parmesan cheese.
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Ingredients
- 1 medium butternut peeled and diced fairly small (about 4 heaped cups)
- Olive oil for drizzling
- Salt & freshly ground black pepper
- 150 gms-200gms mascarpone
- 250 ml 1 cup vegetable or chicken stock
- 30 gms butter
- 300 gm mixed mushrooms of your choice such as shiitake porcini, enoki, Portobello, sliced
- 1 stalk of fresh thyme and 2tsp of stripped thyme leaves
- 300- 350 gms dried tagliatelle pasta or other long pasta of your choice
- Freshly grated Parmesan to serve
- Toasted pumpkin seeds to serve optional
- Fried sage leaves to serve optional
- Salt & black pepper
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200°C/400F. Place the butternut and garlic on a baking tray and drizzle with olive oil, coating well. Season with salt and pepper and bake for 25 to 30 minutes or until caramelised and tender.
- Blend the butternut, mascarpone and stock in a food processor or blender until smooth. Adjust the seasoning.
- Heat a non-stick frying pan with a little olive oil and sauté the mushrooms until they just start to caramelise (about 4 minutes). Add the thyme and cook for another minute or two.
- Add the puréed butternut mixture to the mushrooms and stir through.
- Cook the pasta in salted water until al dente and drain, reserving some of the cooking liquid. Add the cooked pasta to the butternut sauce and stir. If the sauce is a bit thick, add about 60ml of the pasta water to thin it out.
- Serve with freshly grated Parmesan, roasted pumpkin seeds, and sage leaves fried in butter.
Notes
*To fry the sage, melt about 30 grams of butter in a small pan and fry 6 – 8 sage leaves until starting to crisp up. Remove from the butter with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. You can drizzle the brown sage butter over your pasta for extra deliciousness
*To roast pumpkin seeds, spread a handful of pumpkin seeds over a baking tray and roast in 200C/400F oven for a few minutes until they start to crackle and go brown on the edges. You can do this directly after you have roasted the butternut as the oven will be preheated.
Servings: 2