Rigatoni With Roasted Mushrooms And Eggplant And Wine Pairing

Rigatoni with mushrooms and eggplant

So here is the dish I decided to make with those beautiful roasted mushrooms and eggplant from the last post. It’s insanely simple, takes only minutes and is very tasty. It looks pretty boring, shades of cream and brown (those beautiful purple eggplant turned a homely brown) but it’s far from boring in the taste department You don’t really need a recipe per se for this, make as much as you need for your meal.  I didn’t really  measure anything estimated the amounts, you can judge by eyeballing it, it will feel right.

Serves 2-4 depending on serving size

Ingredients:

Roasted eggplant, mushrooms, shallot and garlic

1/2 cup chopped flat leaf parsley (a nice handful)

1/4 cup good white wine or a nice glugg, preferably what you will drink with this dish

olive oil to coat pan

Rigatoni  (1/3-1/2lb)

Goat cheese and mascarpone (use equal amounts of each)

Parmigiano Reggiano grated

Instructions:

Bring a large pot of water to a boil, add a tbs of salt and when it’s a vigorous rolling boil add the rigatoni. Stir occasionally and let boil for approximately 10 minutes or follow instructions on the package.

While your rigatoni is boiling, heat a saute pan with a little olive oil on medium/high, add the mushrooms,eggplant, shallot and garlic (remove the sprigs of thyme first) and a splash of white wine (about 1/4 cup). Cook just long enough to heat the vegetables, with strainer or spyder add the rigatoni to the vegetables. toss to combine and cook for a minute or two adding a little of the pasta water if it’s too dry. Add the chopped parsley. I topped this with  grated parm and a heaping spoonful of goat cheese and mascarpone that I whipped I used equal amounts of goat cheese and mascarpone and simply beat with my electric mixer. This will also be used for dessert, refrigerate what remains.  Hey you can never get too much goat cheese and mascarpone, right?  Stay tuned for dessert.

Wine Pairing courtesy of Stefano Crosio

I asked Stefano from Flora’s Table  and Clicks And Corks  to lend his expertise and  to pair wine with this dish. Here are his recommendations, and I would advise to find these wines, Stefano knows whereof he speaks. His recommendations are always spot on:

Given the characteristics of the ingredients of your dish, a proper wine to pair with it would have good acidity, tannins (or fairly robust ABV), intensity of flavors, tastiness and medium body.  A not overly structured Barbera, such as Coppo, L’Avvocata, would be a good wine for your dish at a very interesting price point (~$15). Otherwise, another good option in white would be Donnafugata’s Chiaranda’ (a Sicilian Chardonnay that retails for about $35.