Recipe: Pasta al ajillo con champiñones

Here in Puebla, it's pretty common to see pasta al ajillo in restaurants, often with an option to add shrimp. I've never seen it with mushrooms though, and one day, Maru and I thought it would be good, and we were right!

This is one of those everyday dishes that will be done in less than 30 minutes. The biggest time sucker is waiting for the water to boil, and you'll most likely finish making the "sauce" before the pasta is done, so you'll have time to throw a salad together if you want.

The name of the dish comes from the guajillo chile, which is a medium-hot dry, smooth-skinned chile. Any dry chile with smooth skin will work (chile de arbol, costeño, cascabel), although many are quite a bit hotter than the guajillo.

This mixture could also be a good base for a stir fry or for a nice piece of fish. This recipe will serve 2 as a main course or 4 as a side dish. It is easily doubled.

Pasta al ajillo con champiñones (Guajillo pasta with mushrooms)

½ lb. dry pasta (spaghetti works well)

3 Tablespoons olive oil

4 cloves garlic, minced (it’s a high garlic to pasta ratio on purpose)

1-2 guajillo chiles, sliced in ¼ inch pieces, seeds removed

1 ½ cups sliced fresh mushrooms

¼ cup chopped fresh parsley

Parmigiano cheese for garnish (optional)

Salt to taste (probably about a teaspoon in total)

Put salted water on to boil for the pasta. Cut up the garlic, chiles, and mushrooms. Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and sautee for about 1 minute, then add the chiles. Cook, stirring constantly (you do not want burnt garlic!), until the chiles start to turn almost black (not burned, but starting to blacken), which should take about 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms with a dash of salt and cook until they are done, about 5 minutes.

Cook the pasta. Once the pasta is al dente, drain it, and add it to the pan with the mushroom mixture immediately. Stir everything together while keeping the pan over medium heat. Add the remaining tablespoon of oil and another dash of salt and stir until everything is evenly incorporated. Turn off the heat, then mix in the parsely.

Plate and top with grated parmigiano. Enjoy! The chile pieces are totally edible if you have a taste for them, and big enough to avoid if you don’t.

A note on spiciness:

As far as spiciness goes, this dish is probably “medium” or so. For most people, it will have a nice kick, but nothing that can’t be quenched with a cool drink. If you want it hotter, just add more chiles, or leave the seeds in. Obviously, you can add fewer chiles too, but another option would be to leave the chiles whole, sautee them with the garlic, then remove them before cooking the mushrooms. They will infuse the oil with some of their flavor, but very little spiciness. I would only recommend that route if you have almost 0 tolerance for spicy food. The flavor of the chiles is a really important part of this simple dish.