Food-Barn-Inspired Mushroom Linguini

If you live in Cape Town and love food, chances are you’ve heard of The Food Barn at The Noordhoek Farm Village. And if you haven’t, well you must have been living under a rock or something, and what’s more, I pity you. Anyway, their resident French chef is currently running cooking demonstrations, and I took my dear friend Debs there a couple of weeks ago for an early birthday present. I can’t even spell half the stuff that Franck Dangereux (I have to ask him if that is for real) pulled together that day, but what I did take away with me was the exquisite-sounding cream sauce that he used for his fresh sage-linguine. Oh, and also how un-pretentious he was, being a French chef and all. Fascinating.

So, this is a VERY loose adaptation of Franck’s sauce – any deliciousness is full credit to him and anything that’s not  you can lump me with.

Post Script, 13 December 2011
Franck remains one of my foodie idols, and I feel beyond honoured that he agreed to write the foreword for Bitten. my blog-themed recipe book, due out in February 2012.

Serves 4 | Preparation time 10 mins | Cooking time 15 mins

WHAT YOU’LL NEED
3/4 packet pasta, preferably linguine/fettucine
2 x 250g tubs of fresh mushrooms, chopped – I used 1 tub brown and 1 tub button mushrooms
1 clove garlic, chopped
1-2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
4 Tbsp butter
2 rashers bacon, diced (you could leave this out if you want a vegetarian option)
Half a cup of cream (Don’t tell anyone I said this but I think you could also get away with half of it being plain yoghurt for a less rich version)

WHAT TO DO
1. Cook the pasta until al dente, drain and set aside. Drizzle with olive oil
2. In a pan heat the butter, add the garlic and bacon and brown
3. Add the mushrooms (you can add a glug of olive oil at this stage if there’s not enough liquid for the mushrooms as you don’t want them to burn)
4. When the mushrooms are starting to turn a golden brown colour, add the cream and then the balsamic vinegar, then add salt and pepper to taste

I think some chopped parsley when serving would not only add some lovely colour but would also balance things out rather nicely.