Rachel Roddy’s recipe for spaghetti with mushrooms, soft cheese and herbs

Before cooking I often turn to Harold McGee. This week I had mushrooms, which he describes as fruiting bodies: encouraged by the parent body underground, they push up through the soil and open their umbrella-like cap so the gills or pores can release spores into passing air currents.

The aim, like other pushy parents, is to get the next generation into the world and hope they don’t get eaten in the process. I hoped a few million spores got away before the white and chestnut mushrooms I bought were picked and packed. After brushing the earth from the stems and wiping the caps with damp kitchen paper, they smelled faintly of waxy citrus peel, yeast, almond and chicken fat — the octanol molecules.

That faint scent is enhanced by cooking: the almond note becomes stronger and a meat-malt flavour appears as mushrooms lose water and take on colour alongside butter and garlic in a hot pan.

rachel roddy, spaghetti, mushrooms, soft cheese, herbs, harold mcgee, garlic, butter, octanol, recipe