Tagliatelle di castagne con funghi e salsiccia (Chestnut Pasta with Sausage and Mushrooms)

While we saw in last week’s post how chesnut flour’s natural sweetness lends itself to desserts like the iconic castagnaccio, it also works beautifully in savory dishes. This recipe, tagliatelle di castagne con funghi e salsiccia or Chestnut Tagliatelle with Mushrooms and Sausage, is a delicious case in point.

The tagliatelle, made with a mix of chestnut flour and the usual 00 flour, are briefly tossed with sautéed sausage meat and mushrooms (classically porcinis, of course, but any kind will do) scented with rosemary and sage. The chestnut flour lends the tagliatelle lovely chestnut hue and a slightly sweet, nutty flavor that pairs beautifully with its savory, woodsy condimento.

Simple but utterly delicious. Bringing together chestnuts, mushrooms and pork, this is practially autumn on a plate.

Ingredients

Serves 4-6

To make the pasta:

• 200g (7 oz) chestnut flour
• 200g (7 oz) 00 flour
• 4-5 eggs
• salt

For the sauce:

• 300g (11 oz) mild Italian sausages removed from their casings and crumbled
• 300g (11 oz) mushrooms, preferably porcini, sliced or cut into bite-sized pieces
• 2 shallots, finely minced
• a sprig of fresh rosemary and a few fresh sage leaves
• olive oil
• 1-2 Tbs butter
• salt and pepper

To finish the dish (optional):

• A few sprigs of fresh parsley, finely minced

Directions

Make the chestnut tagliatelle

Make the tagliatelle dough from the two flours, eggs and salt following the instructions in this post.

Once it has rested for at least 30 minutes, roll the dough out very thin. Cut the sheet into strips about 7mm (1/4 inch) wide. (See Notes below for details.)

Lay the resulting tagliatelle out on a floured surface until needed.

Make the sauce

In a large skillet or saucier, sauté the shallots in abundant olive oil for just a minute or so, until translucent.

Raise the heat and add the crumbled sausage, along with the rosemary and sage. Sauté until the sausage has lost its raw color, breaking up any large chunks.

Now add the mushroom and saute everything over a lively flame until both the mushrooms are well reduced and sausage and mushrooms are lightly brown. Remove the herbs and keep warm until needed.

Cook and dress the pasta

Boil the pasta in well salted water until al dente, only about 1- 2 minutes.

Drain and transfer the pasta to the skillet, along with a small ladleful of the pasta water. Toss until the sauce coats the pasta nicely.

Then, off heat, add a knob or two of butter and, if using, most of the minced parsley. Give it another toss.

Serve

Serve the pasta right away, topped with a final sprinkling of minced parsley if you like.

Notes on tagliatelle di castagne con funghi e salsiccia

Other than making the tagliatelle the recipe is very straightforward and much like many other pasta recipes where pasta is dressed with a condimento that’s not a proper sauce.

Making and cooking the tagliatelle

As far as I can tell, there is no source for buying chestnut pasta, so you’ll just have to make the tagliatelle di castagne yourself. Of course, the sauce is very nice with regular tagliatelle as well, but the chestnut flour really makes this special. Tagligatelle are one of the easier fresh egg pastas you can make. The main challenge here lies in sourcing the chestnut flour, which can be hard to find, at least where I live. But you can order it online. For our North American readers, I’d recommend Alma Gourmet.

You make tagliatelle di castagne just like you would regular tagliatelle, only a mix of chestnut flour and the more usual 00 variety. You need both as chestnut flour has no gluten. Use 4 eggs to start, then add the fifth if needed to bring the dough togeher.

The official dimensions for tagliatelle—yes, there are official dimensions— are 7mm wide uncooked and 8mm cooked and anywhere between 0.6 and 0.8 millimeters thick. This corresponds to setting 5 or 6 on the roller of my pasta machine, cut with the wider cutting attachment. There is no prescribed length. I usually cut my pasta sheets into 30cm (12 in) lengths, sometimes a bit longer, for easy twirling.

Also be aware that fresh tagliatelle cook very quickly, as they are very thin. Test the pasta for doneness just as soon as the water comes back to the boil. You should drain it when it still has some bite, as it will cook a bit more as it gets acquainted with the sausage and mushrooms in the skillet.

Mushrooms

The classic and best kind of mushroom for this dish is undoubtely funghi porcini. Alas, as I’ve discussed elsewhere, porcini are as elusive as chestnut flour where I live. So go with what you like. For this post, I used a store-bought medley of oyster, king oyster and chiodini mushrooms. But even plain Jane button mushrooms will work.

Sausage

As for the sausage, I’d go for a mild variety, one without too many flavorings. Mild Italian sausage works well. Even better is the thinner coiled variety called luganega. If you live near an Italian deli you may be able to find it. Here in the US, sausage meat is also sold loose with casing, which makes things convenient for a dish like this.

For whatever reason, sausages sold in the US often include sugar or corn syrup, which you should avoid if you can. Besides the obvious health issues, given that the chestnut tagliatelle are already a bit sweet, a sweet sausage would result in an unbalanced, cloying dish. The sausage is meant to provide a savory foil to the pasta’s sweetness.

Variations

To start, feel free to add more or less sauage and mushroom to taste or based on what you have at hand. As in many such dishes, exact proportions don’t matter terribly much. I find the measurements here result in a nicely balanced dish, but you may feel differently.

If you want a dish that leans more into the savory side, you can replace the shallots, with are also a bit sweet, with garlic. You gently sauté it first, then discard before adding the crumbled sausage. For a slight tartness, you can deglaze the pan with white wine.

I’ve omitted grated cheese from this recipe, since I don’t think the dish needs it. But if you prefer, you could add a bit of freshly grated parmigiano-reggiano or pecorino as you’re tossing the pasta with the sausage and mushrooms.

And though cream in savory dihs is very much gone out of style in Italy, if you want a proper sauce, you could add cream to the sausage and mushrooms and let it simmer until nicely reduced. This makes for a much richer, heftier dish.

Making ahead and leftovers

You need to make the tagliatelle di castagne at least somewhat ahead, since the dough needs to rest and then the pasta sheets dried before cutting. You can reserve the resulting tagliatelle for a few hours. They will keep in the fridge overnight. The sauce can also be made ahead and reheated when you need it.

The final cooking and dressing of the tagliatelle needs to be done at the last minute, but that only takes five minutes or less.

If you have leftovers, you can reheat them by tossing them in a wide skillet. Not ideal but any means but better than throwing them out.