Mare e Monte: Cockles and Enokitake mushrooms

Mare e monte ... literally means Sea and Mountains

Yesterday walking on Main Street in Park City and enjoying the open craft market, Felipe and I found and re-made our acquaintance with Robert Angellli--robertangelilli@netzero.com --the mushroom-seller we met at last year's summer market. His wife, Amber was with him. She's a professional baker who will have more free time early September when we will have them for dinner. I bought the mushrooms from him. Excellent quality, as always.

For this dish I used cockles (3-4 lbs.) from New Zealand
2 small bunches of fresh Enokitake mushrooms

Wash the cockles thoroughly in cold water...then let sit in a bath of cold water for at least an hour. Rinse again. Pop them in a large fry pan and let them open. Rinse again if you need to. Save the water and filter it. (I use a paper towel and small sieve.)

Clean pot and add:

2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 tablespoon of butter
1/2 sweet onion minced
2 cloves of sliced garlic
4 slices of center cut lean bacon cut up as small as possible
Enokitake mushrooms, clean and separated
3 tablespoons of tomato sauce cooked with basil
chopped Italian parsley if desired
salt, pepper to taste

Cook the bacon, onions, garlic in olive oil and butter on medium-high for about 3 minutes

Cut off the base and separate the tiny mushrooms. Fling in the clean mushrooms, raise the flame to high and cook till mushrooms start to brown. salt and pepper to taste.

Add sauce, add 1/2 -1 cup of the clam broth and bring to a boil, lower to medium and add the cockles...you may discard half of the shells beforehand, if so desired.

Make a pound of spaghetti or linguine and drain it tight, add to the mare e monte...
Garnish with parsley and serve. (4-5 people)

Here's what I found on Wickipedia about these funghi, which when not cultivated are fatter, darker and more robust according to the pictures.

Enokitake (Chinese: 金針菇, Pinyin: jīnzhēngū;Japanese: えのき茸 enokitake; Korean: 팽이버섯, Revised Romanization: paengi beoseot) are long, thin white mushrooms used in Asian cuisines, particularly those of China, Japan and Korea. These mushrooms are cultivars of Flammulina velutipes also called golden needle mushroom. Wild forms differing in color, texture, and sliminess are called winter mushrooms, velvet foot, or velvet stem among other names.
Enoki, or Enokitake