Many of us Ithaca old timers remember Abby’s, a restaurant in the Motor Vehicles Plaza that was run by Abby Nash from 1984 to 1990. It was a sad day for Ithaca diners when Abby’s closed its doors because it was a consistently wonderful place to eat and we all had our favorites. My favorite dish was Abby’s mushroom lasagna and I was lucky enough to run into Abby the other day. He was hosting a cooking demonstration of his mushroom lasagna. This is the original recipe for his mushroom lasagna and it really is a delicacy. It takes a lot of time to make and you need a pasta maker. But it really is worth the effort. Abby uses freshly grated parmesan, the highest quality he can find such as Reggiano. If you want to truly appreciate the different grades of parmesan, set up a blind tasting. My hands down favorite is the Reggiano. When selecting the variety of mushrooms,; the more exotic the types of mushroom, the better. You can re-hydrate dry mushrooms such as porcini. I also like to use porcini powder. Morels, shitake, oyster, and chanterelles are a great mixture along with some regular brown mushrooms. If you’ve never made homemade pasta with a pasta maker before, the important thing is not to have the dough be too wet. Have flour on hand and when you put the sheets of dough through the pasta maker dust them first with flour if needed. The dough should be smooth so if it gets rough or has holes or is sticky, it probably needs more flour. Making pasta from scratch does take practice. ABBY’S MUSHROOM LASAGNA yield 6 med. servings Continue Reading…
