Fork Weekly
Fuži are the pasta of Istria, the peninsula Croatia shares with a corner of Italy — thin diamonds of egg dough rolled around a stick with pointed ends. They are not a filled pasta and they aren’t rolled up like a lasagna.
This version leans on mushrooms rather than the truffles the region is famous for. Dried mushrooms, soaked and chopped, go into the pan along with their liquid, and that does most of the work. Brown the mushrooms properly and the sauce makes itself.
If you do have truffle, shave it over at the table. ;3
Creamy Mushroom Fuži
Fuži are hand-rolled Croatian pasta. Here they're tossed in a creamy mushroom sauce.
Ingredients
For the fuži
- 2 cups (300 g) 00 or all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
- 2 large eggs plus 1 yolk
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- ½ tsp salt
- 1–2 tbsp warm water, as needed
For the mushroom sauce
- ½ oz (15 g) dried porcini
- 1 cup (240 ml) hot water
- 1 lb (450 g) mixed fresh mushrooms (cremini, oyster, chanterelle), sliced
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 shallots, finely minced
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
- ½ cup (120 ml) dry white wine
- 1 cup (240 ml) heavy cream
- ½ cup (45 g) grated parmesan or grana padano
- Salt and black pepper
To finish (optional)
- Fresh or jarred black truffle, for shaving
- A few drops of truffle oil, or 1 tsp truffle paste
- Micro-greens or sprouts
Instructions
- Mound the flour on a board and make a well. Add the eggs, yolk, olive oil and salt, and work the flour in from the edges until a shaggy dough forms, adding warm water a little at a time only if it won't come together.
- Knead 8–10 minutes, until smooth and springy. Wrap and rest at room temperature for 30 minutes — this is not optional, the dough is unrollable before it relaxes.
- Meanwhile, cover the dried porcini with the hot water and soak 20 minutes. Lift them out, chop, and strain the soaking liquid through a coffee filter or fine sieve. Keep both.
- Roll the rested dough very thin, about 1–2 mm, working in batches and keeping the rest covered. Cut into 2-inch (5 cm) squares, then cut those on the diagonal into diamonds.
- Wrap each diamond around a thin skewer or chopstick, corner to corner, and press the two overlapping points together to seal. Slide it off — that's a fuž. Dust with flour and spread on a floured tray in a single layer.
- Heat the olive oil and butter in a wide skillet over medium-high. Add the fresh mushrooms in batches, leaving room in the pan, and cook without stirring until deeply browned, 8–10 minutes total. Crowding steams them and you lose the whole dish.
- Lower the heat to medium. Add the shallots, garlic, thyme and chopped porcini and cook 2 minutes, until fragrant.
- Pour in the wine and scrape the pan, then add the reserved porcini liquid. Simmer until reduced by half, about 4 minutes.
- Add the cream and simmer gently 5 minutes, until it coats a spoon. Season well with salt and plenty of black pepper.
- Boil the fuži in well-salted water until they float plus about 1 minute, 3–4 minutes total. Reserve a cup of pasta water before draining.
- Toss the fuži into the sauce with the parmesan and a splash of pasta water, tossing hard until glossy and clinging. Finish with shaved truffle, a few drops of truffle oil and micro-greens if using.
Recipe notes & tips
- The dried porcini are what make this taste like mushrooms rather than cream. Their strained soaking liquid is the most concentrated flavor in the dish — never pour it out.
- No truffle is no problem. The sauce is built to stand on its own; a spoonful of truffle paste stirred in at the end gets you most of the way for a fraction of the cost.
- Shaping fuži is repetitive but genuinely easy, and it goes fast with a second pair of hands. A chopstick works as well as a proper pasta dowel.
- Shaped fuži freeze well on a floured tray, then bagged once solid. Boil from frozen, adding a minute.
- Istrians drink Malvazija with this. If you're opening a bottle for the sauce anyway, make it that.
768 kcalCalories
21 gProtein
62 gCarbs
48 gFat