Rice Pasta — The Bowl Where Two Worlds Meet

January 6th. The Capitol. I watched it on the brewery break room TV with Marcus, both of us standing in silence as people stormed the building. Marcus turned off the TV and said, "Let's brew." That's Marcus. When the world breaks, you brew. When the world breaks, you cook. Same energy, different vessel. I went home and made bigos. The three-day version. Because bigos is the food of crisis and crisis is the air we breathe. The apartment smelled like sauerkraut and smoked meat and normality, and I stirred the pot and didn't watch the news for three days. The vaccine rollout is accelerating. Wisconsin is vaccinating healthcare workers and the elderly. Mom called to say she'd registered Dad and herself for the first available appointments. Dad, predictably, grumbled about it. "I already had COVID," he said. "I have antibodies." Mom said, "You're getting the shot, Tom." End of discussion. Linda Kowalski, medical dictator. Dad will get the shot. I'm not eligible yet — twenty-four, healthy, no underlying conditions. But the line is moving. By spring, maybe. By summer, definitely. And when I'm vaccinated, I'm going to hug my parents. I'm going to sit at Mrs. Wojcik's kitchen table and eat her babka. I'm going to walk into the Polish Center and fold pierogi with the Thursday women. The physical acts of love that COVID stole — I'm taking them back. The January RecipeSpinoff piece: "Bigos in a Crisis." About the three-day stew, about patience in chaos, about the tradition of making food when making sense of the world is impossible. The recipe is the full three-day bigos. Eighty-five thousand reads. The audience is loyal now — people come back for every piece, every month. Made something new this week: a Polish-style mushroom risotto. Not traditional — Babcia never made risotto — but the technique mirrors pierogi-making in its demand for patience and feel. Arborio rice, dried Polish mushrooms (the same ones from the Wigilia soup), white wine, butter, Parmesan. The mushrooms give it that deep, earthy Polish flavor in an Italian frame. It's my cooking identity in a single bowl: where I come from meets where I'm going.

The bigos takes three days and asks nothing of you but time—which, in January 2021, I had in terrible abundance. But once the pot was empty and the news was still unbearable, I needed something that could carry the same earthy, grounding feeling without the three-day commitment. This rice pasta was the answer: the dried Polish mushrooms I’d pulled out for the Wigilia soup, the same slow attention to the pot, but a dish I could finish in under an hour and eat alone at my kitchen table while the world kept doing what it was doing outside. It’s where I come from and where I’m going, cooked down into something I could actually hold.

Rice Pasta

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 25 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 12 oz rice pasta (linguine or fettuccine style)
• 1 oz dried Polish mushrooms (or dried porcini), rinsed
• 2 cups warm water (for soaking mushrooms)
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, finely diced
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 8 oz fresh cremini mushrooms, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 1/2 cup reserved mushroom soaking liquid (strained)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, plus more for pasta water
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese, plus more for serving
• 2 tablespoons fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Instructions

1. Rehydrate the dried mushrooms. Place dried Polish mushrooms in a small bowl and cover with 2 cups warm water. Soak for 20 minutes until softened. Remove mushrooms, squeeze gently, and chop roughly. Strain the soaking liquid through a fine-mesh sieve or coffee filter and reserve 1/2 cup.
2. Cook the pasta. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook rice pasta according to package directions until just al dente, typically 8—10 minutes. Reserve 1/4 cup pasta water before draining. Drain and set aside.
3. Build the base. While pasta cooks, melt butter with olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until softened and translucent, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook 1 minute more until fragrant.
4. Cook the mushrooms. Add fresh cremini mushrooms and the rehydrated chopped mushrooms to the skillet. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms release their liquid and begin to brown, about 6—8 minutes. Don’t rush this step—the browning is where the depth comes from.
5. Deglaze and reduce. Pour in the white wine and scrape up any browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Let it reduce by half, about 2 minutes. Add the reserved mushroom soaking liquid and let reduce for another 2 minutes.
6. Add cream and finish the sauce. Reduce heat to medium-low. Stir in the heavy cream, salt, and pepper. Simmer gently for 3 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. If it becomes too thick, loosen with a splash of reserved pasta water.
7. Combine and serve. Add the drained rice pasta to the skillet and toss to coat evenly. Remove from heat and stir in Parmesan until melted through. Divide among bowls, top with fresh parsley and additional Parmesan, and serve immediately.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 520 | Protein: 14g | Fat: 22g | Carbs: 65g | Fiber: 3g | Sodium: 410mg