Its origins may be a mystery, but what is certain is that this luxuriant alternative to meat ragu is totally delicious“Antica e desueta [archaic and forgotten] is a beguiling introduction to a recipe,” I said to my friend, the cook and writer Stefano Arturi, when we talked on the phone the other week. He laughed, noting that those words in relation to recipes made him both curious and, because of their foggy closeness to mythologising, suspicious.It was his recipe for hazelnut ragu that started it all, sending us down more or less the same paths in books and online, where we met more of the same thing: fabulously contradictory stories in which ragu made from hazelnuts was an ancient Piedmontese dish of great beauty born out of economy and hardship, and also “forgotten”, which justifies the lack of any evidence as to where it actually came from. Yet also, a breezy, contemporary dish that, like so many modern dishes, was scorned by those faithful to more traditional (ancient, authenti...
Rachel Roddy’s recipe for hazelnut and mushroom ragu with pasta is a luxurious vegetarian alternative to traditional meat ragu. The dish, which originated in Piedmont, combines hazelnuts, mushrooms, and tomatoes in a rich, flavorful sauce. The cooking process involves sautéing finely diced vegetables and herbs, adding nuts for texture and depth, and simmering the mixture with red wine and tomatoes. The ragu is served over fresh pasta, such as tagliatelle, and can be garnished with grated Parmesan. The recipe emphasizes slow cooking to develop complex flavors and textures.
