One of my favorite Italian pastas is this magnificent and simple to prepare pasta called "Pasta con I Funghi" means Pasta with mushrooms.

You can use different types of mushroom for this dish. Here in Italy is very common to use porcini mushrooms, porcini is the king of the mushrooms and Italian called it "the piglets". The texture is very meaty, the flavor is earthy and nutty and is one of the most wanted mushrooms. Italy is the land of porcini. Then there is also the champignon mushrooms which I love because growing up in Iran, champignon mushrooms are the only mushroom Iranian use, other types of mushrooms are very rare and you can not find them easily in Tehran or big cities. I used Brown beech mushroom which is originally from east asia and its local name is Buna shimeji. It have a very delicate and lovely flavor, perfect for pasta and risotto dishes. Now days buna shimeji is cultivated locally in Europe, North America and Australia and sold fresh in super markets. If you can not find this type, use any type you can find.

Serves 4 People

Ingredients:

500 gram dried or fresh linguine
extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves of garlic
600 gram brown beech mushroom
black pepper
160 ml white wine
200-250 gram mascarpone
salt
60 gram grated parmesan cheese
Finely chopped parsley

Method:

Bring a big pot of salted water to boil. Cut the bottom of the mushrooms and carefully clean them without breaking them, brown beech mushrooms are very delicate. Place them in a bowl full of cold water, leave them for 2-3 minutes, this help the dirt goes down in the bottom of the bowl and you can take the mushrooms out while they come on top, place them in a colander and change the water and do this a again, then rinse the mushroom in a colander and let them dry a little bit before using them.
Place a non-stick pan on medium-high heat when is hot, add 5-6 table spoon of olive oil and add the garlics, move them in the pan, don't let them get colored, add the mushrooms and on high heat toast them a little bit, add black pepper, then let them cook on medium-low heat for 4-6 minutes.
Meanwhile add the pasta into pot of boiling water, stir and let it cook.
When the mushrooms are a little bit soft, bring the heat up and add the white wine, when the lovely aroma of ingredients come out it means the alcohol is gone, add the salt, mascarpone and pasta cooking water (150ml) and stir, cook them on low heat. Taste the sauce, add seasoning and more of pasta cooking water if needed.
When the pasta is cooked, rinse the pasta and add it to the mushroom sauce together with grated parmesan and finely chopped parsley, on low-medium heat, mix all the ingredients together, add some extra virgin olive oil on top and serve immediately.

Notes:

Before rising the pasta, reserve some of the "pasta cooking water", don't let the sauce or the pasta get dried, use some more of pasta cooking water to make the pasta silkier.