Drum roll maestro if you please...! This week we wanted to get you cooking with tarragon. Tarragon is one of what the French call the ‘fines herbes’ and you might be used to tasting it in Béarnaise sauce. Trivia alert: it’s slightly aniseed flavour and popular in Azerbaijan where you can even drink it in a bright green carbonated drink called Tarhun.
The quantities provided above are averages only.
Boxes and ingredients are packed in facilities that handles Peanut, Nuts, Sesame, Fish, Crustaceans, Milk, Egg, Mustard, Celery, Soya, Gluten and Sulphites. Due to the war in Ukraine, it has been necessary to substitute sunflower oil with rapeseed oil in some products without a label change. The FSA have advised that allergic reactions to rapeseed oil are rare.
½
Red Onion
3
Parsley
3
Tarragon
1
Wild Mushrooms
½
Vegetable Stock Pot
(Contains Celery, Sulphites)
1
Garlic Clove
220
Wheat Tagliatelle
(Contains Cereals containing gluten)
½
Flour
(Contains Cereals containing gluten)
1
Creme Fraiche
(Contains Milk)
2
Grated Hard Italian Style Cheese
(Contains Milk, Egg)
½
Lemon
Boil a kettle. Peel and finely chop the red onion, garlic and parsley. Finely chop the tarragon. Thinly slice the mushrooms. Mix half the stock pot with 120ml of your boiling water in a jug and stir to dissolve.
Heat a large frying pan over a medium heat and add 1 tbsp of olive oil. Once warm, add the onion and sweat for 2-3 mins until translucent. Add the garlic and mushrooms and season with ¼ tsp of salt and a few good grinds of black pepper. Cook for a few mins until the mushrooms are cooked through, then turn heat to low.
Meanwhile, bring a large pot of water to the boil for the pasta and add 1/4 tsp of salt. Cook your pasta in the boiling water for around 10 mins or until ‘al dente’. Tip: ‘Al dente’ means the pasta is cooked through but has a hint of firmness left in the middle.
Sprinkle the flour over the mushrooms and stir gently until it has been absorbed. Add the vegetable stock, parsley and tarragon to the pan. Simmer gently until thickened (about 3 mins). Add a few tbsp of the pasta water to loosen it up.
Finish the sauce by stirring in the crème fraîche. Add a good squeeze of lemon juice and a couple more twists of black pepper. Cook gently for 1-2 mins.
Drain the pasta and add to the pan with the sauce.
Serve in bowls with your cheese sprinkled over the top.