Creamy Giant Puffball and White Wine Pasta

A couple of weeks ago, I had an absolutely amazing week, with multiple high points for all of my hobbies. First, my husband and I took a long weekend (Saturday-Monday) to central Texas, doing a lot of rock hounding at the famous Texas Slab in Kingsland, looking for material to keep the tumblers running. Along the way we visited one of our favorite distilleries, Flannigan's, and did some fossil hunting along the highway roadcuts outside of Gatesville. We ended up finding some nice (if incomplete) rudist fossils and blue chert in the Gatesville area and a whopping 61.8 lbs of rocks for tumbling, mostly a mix of cherts, iron-stained quarts, jaspagate (including a spectacular root-beer nodule) and--one of my favorites--hematoid quartz. We also found a few interesting rhyolites, mica-rich rocks, and others I couldn't identify.  

On our way back home we went hunting for Texas llanite, a rare porphyry stone that's only found on one ridge in central TX. The ridge (called the Llano uplift) represents the movements of the tectonic plates over a geothermic hotspot. Llanite is the result of volcanic activity creating rhyolite with bubbles in the stone that would later fill with blue quartz and feldspar--truly gorgeous. Most of the ridge is on private land, but there is just one public access point on TX state highway 16, pretty much exactly 10 miles north of the junction between 16 and 19 in the city of Llano. The rocks are hard, but after a few hours of grueling labor we had about 5lbs of llanite to bring home. All-in-all I achieved all my rock hunting goals, except we didn't find any petrified wood.  

Then on Tuesday, while raiding in World of Warcraft, I finally got the bow off of Prince Malchezaar in Karazhan, giving my hunter the best weapon she can use in this phase.
Then finally, on Thursday the 23, I got lost while trying to pick up Italian during my lunch break and ended up stumbling upon the absolute motherlode of Calvatia craniiformis, aka the skull-shaped giant puffball mushroom. 

When I say the motherlode, I'm talking an enormous fairy ring of the mushrooms with over a dozen full-sized specimens that covered an entire yard. Having received permission to harvest (and after confirming that no fertilizers had been used) I decided to take 4: The very largest, a nicely large one that seemed quite firm, and two youngish and very firm, softball-sized specimens. There we also a myriad of babies (roughly golfball-sized) that I left to grow up so I could harvest them the next week. 

Our First Puffballs in Texas

When my husband and I lived in NJ, puffballs were one of the most common mushrooms we'd encounter, though the giant puffballs (Calvatia genus) were rare. Mostly we would find the small gem-studded puffballs (Lycoperdon perlatum) or pear-shaped puffballs (Apioperdon pyriforme, formerly known as Lycoperdon pyriforme). We would frequently find dozens, nearly 100, in a single place. We found so many we rarely even photographed them, and--to be fair--this was before we owned smartphones. 

With regards to the giant puffballs, we'd only ever found a few. We found a cluster of 6 monstrously-sized Calvatia gigantea along NJ route 21. Since 21 is one of the most famously polluted areas in the Northeast USA, we didn't eat those. I found a fair number of Calvatia cyathiformis (purple-spored puffballs) over the years, but only ever felt a couple were in safe areas and received permission to harvest. 

However, since moving to Texas, puffballs, both small and large, have completely eluded us, though we did find several in while on Vacation in Puerto Rico. We had no way of cooking them or bringing them home and so let them be. 

About the Recipe

This dish is the evolution of one of my favorite meals I would cook while in college. In high school, one of my friends gave me a semi-gag gift, a lore-book called "Leaves from the Inn of the Last Home". The Inn of the Last Home was a tavern in the Dungeons and Dragons world of Krynn. Encompassing trivia, character backgrounds and, strangely, a cookbook section. The cookbook included recipes that--while not exactly world-class in terms of flavor--were generally very easy and quick to make, perfect for someone just starting out on their own. 

The recipe that inspired this dish was called "Shrimp Tarsis". The name was itself a joke, as in the lore of the books, Tarsis had once been a city on the sea, but a cataclysmic event sundered the world and left Tarsis inside a desert. The citizens adapted and converted their famous recipes to utilize fowl and game, rather than fish and shellfish. The original recipe called for turkey breast, but overtime, I adapted my own versions for mushrooms, particularly puffball mushrooms, though the change does make it take a lot longer to prepare. 

Creamy Giant Puffball & White Wine Pasta Recipe

Serves 4 as a main course | Approximately 45 minutes prep + cook time

• 1 lb pasta of your choice
• 6-8 cups of puffball mushrooms, cut or broken into rough shapes, approximately 3/4 of an inch by 1 inch by 1/4 inch
• 2 medium shallots, diced
• 1 cup semi-dry, drinkable white wine
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 3 tbs flour
• 1 stick butter, 8 tbs/8 pats
• 3 cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbs garlic powder
• 1 large lemon, zest and juice
• Salt to taste
• Olive oil

1. Start the pasta according to package directions. When you drain the pasta, reserve 2 cups of the cooking liquid. 
2. Mix the wine, lemon juice and lemon zest and set aside. 
3. Add 4 pats of butter and a glug of olive oil to a large skillet over medium-high heat. 
4. Once the butter and oil are hot, add the mushrooms and increase the heat to high. Continue to sauté the mushrooms, moving constantly, until they have released their liquid and are toasted brown all over, around 20 minutes. Add additional oil if needed but be circumspect. The mushrooms should release liquid making extra butter not needed. 
   
   
   
   
   
5. Once fully browned (see above) remove the mushrooms from the pan and set aside in a large bowl.
6. Add the minced shallot minced garlic and 1 tbs of butter to sauté pan and reduce temp to medium. Sauté until translucent and fragrant, stirring constantly.  
7. Once the aromatics are cooked through, pour the wine/lemon mix over them and deglaze the pan by using your wooden spoon to scrape up all the browned mushroom bits from the bottom of the pan. 
8. Bring the mix to a boil and boil for 1 minute, then remove from heat, and pour the shallot mix over the mushrooms. 
9. Add the remaining 3 tbs of butter to the sauté pan and melt over low heat. 
10. Remove from heat and whisk in the flour, a sprinkle of salt and garlic powder until smooth. Taste for salt and seasoning and adjust as needed. 
11. Pour in the heavy cream and the reserved pasta liquid and return to stove over medium-low heat. Sauté--stirring constantly, and I mean constantly--until you have a perfectly smooth, creamy sauce. 
12. Mix together the pasta, the sauce and the mushroom shallot mix over low heat and heat through. Serve immediately with a sprinkle of parsley (optional).