Vegan wild mushrooms (black trumpet) pasta with truffle oil

I have been learning how to forage for a while now and last week I had another achievement. For the first time I found the legendary black trumpet mushroom a.k.a horn of plenty.

Black trumpet mushrooms are a popular edible mushroom that have a smoky, nutty taste to them, with a unique sweet aroma. They are so delicious and go well with almost anything.

I wanted to share this recipe with you as black trumpet is fairly common in the UK between August and October, and as it’s a unique mushroom with no poisonous UK lookalikes, it’s perfect for foraging beginners! Please check out my other post here to learn where you can find and identify this delicious mushroom.

Since it is the first time I found black trumpets, and quite unexpectedly so, I thought my first recipe will be back to the basics – a simple creamy pasta with mushrooms, you can’t go wrong, right? 😉 Then when I was starting to prep for this recipe I saw a bottle of English truffle oil in my pantry, and I thought as it involves foraging this recipe may not appeal to many people anyway so maybe I should just forget about the views and cook whatever I want. Here we go!

First, let’s prepare the broth for the sauce. I didn’t have a decent vegetable broth so I mixed together 1 teaspoon of Bouillon powder, 1 tablespoon of nutritional yeast (for an extra nutty flavour), and 200ml of boiling water. Stir well and set aside.

For this recipe, I used wild black trumpets, wild oyster mushrooms, shiitake, shimeji and king oyster mushrooms.

If you’re interested in trying this recipe but don’t want to go foraging, you can find black trumpet mushrooms in most gourmet vegetable shops and farmer’s markets between August to late October. However, if you can’t find them you can always replace them with regular chestnut mushrooms. Oyster, shiitake, shimeji and king oyster mushrooms are fairly common. You can almost always find them in M&S, Waitrose or even a local Chinese grocery store.

This is the truffle oil I used, but it is completely optional.

Heat the olive oil in a large, non-stick frying pan on a high heat. Add the minced garlic and fry until golden, then add the chopped onion and fry for another 5 minutes.

Add the sliced mushrooms, fresh thyme, and salt and pepper, stir-fry on a medium heat for 4-5 minutes, until the mushrooms are soft and golden.

I normally keep a few good looking pieces for decoration later on, but this is entirely optional.

Pour in the bouillon broth and coconut milk. Just before the broth starts bubbling, turn down to a medium-low heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, cook the pasta in salted boiling water, following the cooking time on the pasta packaging. Once cooked, drain the pasta in a sieve and shake to remove all the excess water.

In a small bowl, mix together 1 tablespoon of cornstarch and 2 tablespoons of water, add to the pasta sauce, stirring very slowly until the sauce is thick and creamy.

Turn off the heat, add the cooked pasta and drizzle over 1/4 teaspoon of truffle oil. Toss gently until the sauce covers the pasta evenly.

Truffle oil has a delicate flavour so it’s best to add it at the very last minute. The strength of truffle oils can vary a lot between brands, if you don’t know your truffle oil well, I suggest adding very little at first so it doesn’t overpower the dish. You can always add more later if the dish needs it.

I wish you could be here, the smell of this pasta is out of this world and I can’t wait to try it!!

A fantastic simple pasta dish that brings a smile to your face, super creamy and mushroomy with a touch of truffle oil – add a bottle of great wine and you’ve got the perfect treat in just 20 minutes.

Let me know if you try out this recipe. You can leave a comment below, or take a picture and tag it with #k33_kitchen and share it on Instagram! I’d love to see what you come up with. Cheers, hope you enjoy my recipes!