Tagliatelle with dried porcini and a seasonal pesto

Two recipes for an early autumn Sunday: tagliatelle with dried porcini mushrooms in the dough and a seasonal roasted squash, walnut, and sage pesto

If I say autumn, which flavours come to your mind? I associate the early days of the fall season with squash, porcini mushrooms, and a return of nuts and more intense herbs, such as sage and rosemary, that are finally taking the place of basil, which dominated the summer without any competition among tomatoes, pesto, and quick pasta bowls.

Autumn is also the time when quick dishes, often based on just combining fresh, seasonal ingredients on a plate, give way to more thought-out recipes with a few extra steps (but just a few, I promise).

So, I’m taking the chance of this first autumn-tinged newsletter to share a new recipe we developed in collaboration with Unicoop Tirreno.

The only requirement was that it be an autumn recipe made with the fresh, seasonal produce that you could find at the local Coop supermarket. It was easy to spot one of the first Delica squashes in the fruit and vegetable department, where you can find many products selected on the basis of seasonality and local excellence.

Next to the pumpkin, I lined up all the other ingredients that for me represent autumn in the kitchen: walnuts, porcini mushrooms, and sage.

If these are my ingredients for today's recipe, those that define Coop products are quality, transparency, convenience, and safety.

What would you make with these ingredients? A risotto? A pasta dish? Or maybe a soup, since autumn is just the best season for that? Share your ideas in the comments!

Now I'll tell you what I made with those ingredients.

Dried porcini mushroom tagliatelle with roasted squash and walnut pesto

In cooperation with Unicoop Tirreno

Looking at this dish, though, it actually consists of two recipes that go very well together.

On the one hand, we have tagliatelle with dried porcini mushrooms in the pasta dough.

Tried them several times in cooking classes, these rough, rustic-looking tagliatelle hide a secret: a handful of dried porcini mushrooms blended into a powder and kneaded into the flour and egg dough, which give an intense autumn aroma to the pasta.

Compared to the classic tagliatelle recipe (2 eggs and 200 grams of flour), as you will see, there is also water to compensate for the water that had been extracted from the porcini when they were dried. Add it slowly as needed.

These tagliatelle can be dressed with a fresh porcini sauce for a quintessentially autumn dish, or, as I did today, with a seasonal pesto.

Roasted squash, walnut, and sage pesto

I had been thinking about this pesto for a while. I imagined the texture, rustic and not too creamy. I was looking for a perfect balance between the sweetness of the roasted squash and the more intense flavour, tending towards bitterness, of walnuts and sage. The savouriness of the grated pecorino romano added what was missing.

This pesto will keep in the fridge for a few days, covered in oil, and is just as good for a midweek dinner wholemeal spaghetti bowl, as it is for today's tagliatelle with porcini mushrooms, perfect for one of these early autumn Sundays.