Paccheri with Oyster Mushrooms, Pancetta, Green Garlic & Chives

I first had paccheri in a small restaurant outside of Positano, Italy on the Amalfi coast. They are large tubes of pasta that go well with nearly any chunky sauce. I recently bought some in NYC at DiPalo's. I thought they would be the perfect complement to a pasta sauce featuring the oyster mushrooms I bought from Zehr & Sons.

I started cooking the oyster mushrooms (about 12oz) dry in a non-stick wok over low heat. As they started cooking down, I raised the heat to medium and added a tablespoon of olive oil, thinly sliced green garlic from Kilpatrick Family Farm purchased at the Queensbury Farmers Market and 12 oz. of thinly sliced pancetta.  In the meantime I had been cooking the pasta in rapidly boiling, heavily salted water. I finished cooking the pasta in the wok. Once this was cooked through, I added chopped chives from my garden including the beautiful purple flowers and 8oz of freshly grated Parmiggiano-Reggiano. This was a keeper!

Comments

[Marco Romano]

Right up my alley, Doc. Great photos as always.

[John Sconzo]

Thanks, Marco! This is one I absolutely plan on doing again. The problem with repeating it is that with the green garlic and the chive flowers it is very seasonal. I think it would probably be as good or nearly so with regular garlic. It wont be as pretty without the chive flowers, but regular chives should work fine too.