Make a Soy Sauce Cream Pasta Gratin with Autumn Mushrooms

This is an option when you have mushrooms left in the fridge and want to make an oven dish.

What can you make with these ingredients?

Nongsaro lists king oyster and shiitake mushrooms among its October ingredients. Use that as inspiration for an autumn mushroom dish; the base recipe below uses portobello and brown button mushrooms. Divide the soy sauce between sauteing the mushrooms, boiling the pasta and making the bechamel.

The total 75 minutes includes 20 minutes of baking. You saute the mushrooms in a pan and prepare the pasta and sauce in separate pots, so portioning the ingredients before starting makes the sequence easier to follow.

How much of each ingredient do you need?

Units: T means 1 level tablespoon (Korean table spoon, about 15ml), and t means 1 teaspoon (about 5ml).

The original specifies 1 onion and 3 garlic cloves. Their weights in the table, along with the oil and cooking water amounts, are suggested measurements. The original's 3 sprigs of thyme and 3 tablespoons of parsley are also given here as suggested gram amounts for optional ingredients. The 0.3g of pepper is likewise not a fixed quantity from the original.

• If you substitute mushrooms, keep the total at 400g.
• If you omit thyme, pepper or parsley, leave the other quantities unchanged.

What order should you cook in?

1. Add 15ml oil to a pan and saute the onion, garlic and optional thyme for 3–4 minutes, then remove them. Add 15ml oil and the mushrooms, and saute over high heat until browned. Add 150ml wine and 2 tablespoons soy sauce. When the liquid has reduced by half, return the onion mixture to the pan.

2. Add 1 tablespoon soy sauce to 3L water, cook the pasta for the package time and drain. Melt 50g butter in another pot, add 50g flour and cook for 2–3 minutes. Add 400ml milk in portions, stirring until smooth and thick. Add 1 tablespoon soy sauce, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard and the optional pepper, then mix in the mushrooms, pasta and 30g cheese.

3. Transfer to an ovenproof dish and top with 30g cheese and 20g breadcrumbs. Bake for 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 200°C. For a fan oven, preheat to 180°C. Add the optional parsley after baking.

What should you watch to avoid mistakes?

• Before cooking, divide the soy sauce into portions of 2, 1 and 1 tablespoons. This helps prevent adding it all to the sauce.
• Reduce the liquid in the mushroom pan by half before combining. Adding all the unreduced liquid makes the sauce thinner.
• When adding milk, stir across the bottom of the pot to break up flour lumps. Combine with the pasta once smooth.

Bechamel is a sauce made by heating it in a pot, rather than a cold seasoning mixed in advance. Add the milk in portions, allowing each addition to blend with the flour before pouring in more.

Keep the mushroom pan separate from the sauce pot so the milk does not get mixed in while the wine is reducing. Wait for the mushrooms to brown before adding the next ingredients, and for the sauce to become free of lumps before mixing in the pasta.

Set aside 30g cheese for the topping so you do not mix in all 60g at the start.