All'arrabbiata means "angry style" in Italian, which certainly describes this dish! The main flavours in arrabbiata are garlic and chilli and this recipe produces a thick, spicy pasta sauce, of which a little goes a long way. As it is meat-free, it is also relatively cheap, with the price of a serving coming at less than a pound (and probably less than a dollar.)
If you have a pasta machine, this recipe is best served with freshly made tagliatelle.
Mushroom Arrabbiata
Recipe serves 3-4
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp Olive Oil
- Knob of butter
- 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 3 button mushrooms, finely chopped
- 1 tsp Chilli Flakes
- 1 can of chopped tomatoes (peeled plum will work if you pulp them down in the can first)
- Handful basil leaves, finely shredded
- Salt And Milled Pepper
To Serve
- Any long pasta (preferably flat, such as linguine, fettuccine, tagliatelle, but spaghetti will work.)
- Freshly milled black pepper
- Parmesan, grated on top
Directions
- Pour the oil into a frying pan. Place the butter in the oil and melt over a low heat.
- Add the garlic, mushrooms and chili flakes to the frying pan. Fry over a low heat for 5-10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- Stir in the chopped tomatoes. Increase the heat to medium to heat the tomatoes through, then reduce to low and gently simmer for 15 minutes.
- Add the finely shredded basil. Simmer for a further 5 minutes or until the tomatoes have reduced to a thick sauce and then season to taste.
- Toss the pasta in the sauce then serve with the pepper and parmesan on top.
Variations on Mushroom Arrabbiata
To this recipe there are a number of ingredients you could add. If you’d like some meat, than 3 rashers of bacon cut into strips can be added with the garlic, mushrooms and chilli flakes. You could also try adding pancetta or salami.
If you want to keep the dish vegetarian then you could add roasted red peppers (blackened under a grill or on a hob, peeled and thinly sliced) with the tomatoes, or even experiment with different types of mushrooms. The button mushrooms in this recipe don’t add a significant amount of flavour, but do soak up the heat of the chillies and the butter & garlic flavours.
It is also possible to create a more substantial sauce that can sit atop the pasta (rather than be tossed through it) by adding another can of tomatoes and some sliced mushrooms. Although doing this will dilute the flavours of chilli & garlic and make it a more “sedate” style sauce.
Terry Hathaway - I'm a PhD student at the University of Leeds, UK. I write about things that interest me and that, having applied my enormous (and so ...
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