Mushroom Butter Sauce For Tortellini

Mushroom Butter Sauce For Tortellini

Do you eat mushrooms very often? I love them and often add them as part of many different pasta sauces. I especially love shiitake mushrooms. They have a great flavor and a good meaty texture and really shine in this sauce. 

Unfortunately, another member of my household loves mushrooms, much to my dismay. The first time I discovered this was on a camping trip a couple of years ago. My little sheltie, Camper, is very good at finding mischief, it is his specialty. 

Late one afternoon, while camping in the UP, I noticed Camper was sitting very quietly, which is unlike him. I went to investigate and found him dining on some kind of toad stool shaped mushroom. Yikes!! I grabbed it away from him with a stern NO! NO! I guess it wasn’t poisonous, because he suffered no ill effects.

I'm rather fond of mushrooms.

On two additional occasions, I caught him nibbling on mushrooms. One was growing out of the side of a dead tree stump and another was sprouting out of the lawn. In each case, he had no ill effects, but my heart was racing and I’m sure my blood pressure was sky-high!

On my last camping trip, I had to keep a good watch out because mushrooms were sprouting all over. I wish I knew how to determine which ones are safe to eat, but I don't. I scouted our campsite and removed all mushrooms I found, knowing Camper would make a snack out of them.

Anytime we’re outside, I have to watch Camper like a hawk, for he is always on the lookout for a tasty wild mushroom.  I had better break him of this habit before he runs out of luck. No wild mushrooms for me. I don’t take chances on anything but store-bought mushrooms. When I stumble on shiitake mushrooms, this sauce is one of my favorite ways to show them off.

1 stick of butter

1 large onion chopped up fine

12 oz. shiitake mushrooms, sliced

2 large cloves of garlic, smashed and minced

2 large shallots, sliced thin

1 tbs. chopped fresh sage

or use 1/4 tsp. dried

1/4 cup chopped fresh basil

or use 1 tsp. dried

Cajun seasoning

1 tsp. smoked paprika

1/2 cup red wine

1 28 oz. can of ground tomatoes

Fresh ground black pepper

Preparation

Melt three quarters of the stick of butter in a large skillet, gently! Do not burn the butter. When it is almost melted, add the onion, cover the skillet and let the onions sweat down for about ten minutes. Don’t let them burn. Stir them every minute or so. While the onions are cooking, slice the shiitake mushrooms and then smash and mince the garlic and slice the shallots. Add all of these to the skillet, cover and let them cook another five minutes. 

Add the sage, basil and smoked paprika to the mushroom onion mix and stir for about a minute. Give the skillet a generous sprinkling of Cajun seasoning and add the wine. Let the sauce simmer for a couple of minutes and add the ground tomatoes and a generous amount of fresh ground black pepper. Simmer for ten minutes, stirring often.

Taste and adjust the sauce for seasoning. When it is right, turn off the heat and stir in the remaining quarter stick of unsalted butter. Keep stirring until the butter is melted and incorporated into the sauce.

Serving

Serve this sauce over homemade tortellini ... Oh, alright, go ahead and serve it over good quality frozen tortellini from the store. Now here is a tip. The meal will turn out much better if you cook the frozen tortellini before serving it with the sauce. Do what you want, but that’s what I do.

Along with tortellini, you can serve asparagus sautéed with some shallots in butter, fresh bread, still warm from the oven and a fresh tossed salad. For the wine, I don’t know, maybe a  Pinot Noir from France or a Sicilian red.