Pasta With Mushrooms, Tomatoes, and Broccoli Cream

Submitted by emmalie

"This is a great recipe I got from my friend in Portland, OR. It is always refreshing and very healthy. Great for any season!"

 

• Ready In: 35mins
• Ingredients: 12
• Serves: 4

ingredients

• Broccoli Cream

• 1 head broccoli
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1⁄4 - 1⁄2 cup milk
• 4 tablespoons olive oil (divided)
• generously salt and pepper

• Pasta

• 1 lb spaghetti
• 4 ounces chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned and cut (may use any mushrooms)
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves picked off and roughly chopped (may use 1 tsp dry thyme)
• 2 teaspoons garlic, chopped
• 2 tablespoons white wine
• 1 large tomatoes, chopped
• parmesan cheese or pecorino romano cheese, to taste

directions

1. Cut broccoli into florets with 1 inch stem.
2. Drop broccoli into pot of boiling salted water.
3. Boil until easily pierced with a knife.
4. Drain.
5. In a sauté pan add butter and broccoli.
6. Cook over medium-low heat until broccoli is broken down and all the moisture is cooked off.
7. Place broccoli in a blender or food processor.
8. Add milk and olive oil and puree until a smooth cream (add more milk if needed to make creamy).
9. Season with salt and pepper.
10. Set broccoli cream aside.
11. Cook pasta.
12. In sauté pan, head 2 TB olive oil over medium heat.
13. Add mushrooms and cook a couple minutes.
14. Add chopped thyme and garlic.
15. Before garlic begins to brown, deglaze with wine (or broth) and simmer until almost dry.
16. Drain pasta and toss with mushroom mixture and lightly toss in chopped tomato.
17. On each plate layer broccoli puree with pasta on top.
18. Season with salt and pepper, top with cheese.

Reviews

[dakahler]

Excellent recipe, I took the advice of another reviewer who said it was bland and sauteed garlic and onions with the broccoli before pureeing, and added sea salt and pepper, I then added tomato sauce to the blender. The sauce was delicious! Also, served it with roasted red peppers. Thank you for the great recipe!

 

[Realtor by day, Chef by night]

This was really good. I added some romano cheese and we really liked it. Thanks for posting. Made for Pick a Chef Spring 2009.

 

[CulinaryExplorer]

I really love the idea of this, and it is beautiful to look at. However, we found it a bit on the bland side. I definitely think with a few additions this could be a GREAT meal though! I had already used about double the mushrooms but there still wasn't many considering the recipe used a lb of pasta. So I may use more mushrooms and perhaps a mix of them and sautee them up in some butter for more flavor. I would also maybe add some more seasonings and possibly some type of cheese to it. And I was thinking possible some cut up ham or chicken would be really good if you wanted to add a meat to this dish. I might have to try this again and try a few things to see what else might jazz it up a bit. I added more salt and pepper at the table to my own and that did help a bit to really pull the flavors that were already there out as well. Great way to eat your veggies though!