WHAT’S COOKING: Creamy biltong and mushroom pasta with coriander

Combine the traditional flavours that go with biltong, including coriander, with the happy marriage of mushrooms, cream and black pepper, for a pasta sauce that is one part Italian and another part South African.

Soft biltong, pink in the middle – I suppose we could call it medium rare even though it hasn’t been cooked – is best for a pasta sauce. And there’s no reason why biltong should not make its way into a pasta recipe.

The biltong sold in pre-packaged vacuum packs is generally not suited to a pasta sauce. It tends to be firm, “hard” biltong, and that’s not what you need. And though some biltong pasta recipes call for biltong “dust”, I think this is a terrible choice. It’s grainy by nature, and your sauce will be too.

The best route when sourcing biltong for pasta is to find a good biltong speciality shop, one of those delis that have sprung up in South African shopping centres. Or, do as I do – when passing through a Karoo town, find the local butcher, or the best one, and ask them if they make their own biltong.

Ask them to “rasper” their softest (and biggest) stukkie of biltong for you, super thinly. That’s the biltong you need for your pasta sauce.

I used a teaspoon of finely ground coriander in this pasta sauce, which is highly unusual. We don’t spice our pastas, other than with pepper. But coriander seeds are a core ingredient in the curing and spicing of biltong, and it’s a tidy fit for this sauce’s flavour profile.

I also had a relatively heavy hand with the black pepper, because I like the interplay between pepper and cream in a sauce (pepper steak isn’t popular for nothing).

And I threw in a glass of dry white wine because that can only enhance a cream sauce.

Because I wanted something green to garnish this dish, I chose coriander leaves, because it seemed the obvious choice given that the plant’s seed flavours the biltong anyway.

Add the onion and cook on a lowish heat, stirring, for 3 or 4 minutes, then add the garlic and cook for another minute.

Add the sliced mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they have released all their juices. Cook these away until the mushrooms are wet, rather than swimming in liquid.

Season to taste with the ground coriander, salt and plenty of ground black pepper.

Add the cream and, when it starts bubbling, reduce the heat to a simmer and let it cook for a few minutes for the flavours in the sauce to develop.

Toss the pasta through the sauce and serve, garnished with fresh coriander leaves and grated parmesan. DM