A Recipe for Spring: Wild Garlic Fazzoletti by Roberta Hall McCarron

Two of our favourite Edinburgh restaurants are The Little Chartroom and Eleanore run by Roberta Hall McCarron and her husband, Shaun. (A third, Ardfern, will open in June.) We met with Roberta at The Little Chartroom to share this seasonal recipe.

Fazzoletti is a type of pasta, derived from the Italian word for handkerchief. This is a delicious, easy dish, and visually striking with the wild garlic leaves rolled through the pasta. Topped with mushrooms, asparagus and peas it is the perfect celebration of spring.

160g pasta flour (00)

15g egg yolk

80g whole eggs

Start by making your pasta dough, as it needs a couple of hours to rest and chill - it can be made entirely by hand, or you can start it in a stand mixer with the dough hook attachment and finish it by hand.

Place the pasta flour in a mixing bowl, make a hole in the centre and pour the eggs in. Use a fork to mix the flour and egg together, transfer to your work top and kneed with your hands until a smooth dough forms (approx. 5-10 minutes).

Wrap in cling film and place in the fridge for a couple of hours.

Cut the pasta into 2 pieces, and using a rolling pin take to approx. 1cm thickness, try to keep the pasta the same width as your pasta machine. Wrap one piece of pasta in cling film and put to the side. Set your pasta machine to the widest setting and start feeding the pasta through, go through twice on each setting. Take to setting number (6 for an electric attachment, 4 for a manual machine)

Place on a lightly floured surface, to one side, repeat the same process for the other piece of pasta.

Lay the wild garlic on top of 1 sheet of pasta, covering almost all of it, place the other sheet directly on top and press lightly with the rolling pin. Feed through the machine 4 times, the pasta will lengthen and stretch the wild garlic. Trim the sides and cut into 10cm squares.

250g button mushrooms

500ml water

10g dried shiitake

1 tsp fine salt

250g chestnut mushrooms

4 banana shallots

Sunflower oil

400ml double cream

1 tsp fine salt

For the mushroom stock, thinly slice the button mushrooms, place in a pot with the water and 1 tsp of salt. Cook on a medium heat for 1 hour until the liquid has reduced by half. Add the dried shiitake’s and infuse for 15 minutes. Strain, discard the mushrooms and keep the mushroom stock.

Whilst the stock is cooking, peel and thinly slice the shallots, sauté with enough oil to cover the base of a pot over a medium heat, until soft and translucent. Thinly slice the chestnut mushrooms and add to the shallots, sauté for 5 minutes over a medium heat. Add in the cream and salt, reduce the cream down slowly, you want it to caramelise – stir it regularly as it’ll catch on the bottom of the pan – allow this to happen but don’t let it burn.

Add the mushroom stock to the caramelised cream and blend until smooth, taste and adjust the seasoning.

50g Maitake mushrooms (Oyster mushrooms are lovely too, if you're unable to get Maitake)

4 asparagus spears

100g fresh peas

1 handful washed wild garlic

50g butter

200g water

1 lemon

salt

Cut the Maitake mushrooms into 2cm thick slices. Remove the leaves from the asparagus spears and cut away the ‘woody’ part at the bottom of the spear. Bring a pot of water to the boil add salt and blanch the asparagus spears for 1 minute. Keep the pot of water to cook the pasta. Cut the asparagus into smaller bite sized pieces.

Warm a frying pan and cover the base with a little oil, place the Maitake slices into the pan, sprinkle with a little sea salt, colour and cook for 2 minutes on each side. 

Place the pasta into the pot of water and cook for 3 minutes.

Add the butter into the pan with the Maitakes and allow to melt, add in the water, simmer, add in the peas and cook for 2 minutes, next the asparagus, and the wild garlic. The butter and water will reduce to an emulsion and coat all the vegetables.

Warm the mushroom sauce through, place a couple of spoons of sauce and veg in the base of your bowl. Cover with a couple of sheets of pasta, then pile the rest of the veg on top, and drizzle more sauce around.

Finish with some grated lemon zest over the top.

Mentioned: Keramische Werkstatt Margaretenhöhe | The Little Chartroom | Eleanore | Ardfern | @chef_roberta_hall I Lesley Jones Photography