Nov 11, 2020
Mushroom Stroganoff
Ingredients
¼ cup cup butter
2 tbsp olive oil
4 shallots, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
500 g Swiss brown mushrooms, halved or thickly sliced
1 tbsp smoked paprika
1 tbsp sweet paprika
1 tsp caraway seeds
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 ½ tbsp flour
2 cups vegan beef or veg stock
1 tbsp vegan Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp Dijon mustard
1 tbsp red wine vinegar
½ cup vegan sour cream or cream cheese.
Handful chopped dill
Handful chopped parsley
Salt and pepper to season
Directions
Heat butter and oil over a medium high heat, then add the shallots and mushrooms and cook until slightly golden. Season with salt and pepper.
Add the garlic and cook off for a minute then add both paprikas, caraway and tomato paste. Cook over medium heat for a further minute.
Add the flour and toast for a minute before slowly stirring in the stock, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar and mustard.
Allow to simmer partially covered over a low heat for about 20 minutes before finishing with the sour cream/cream cheese and herbs. Add more stock if needed.
Stir until the sour cream/cream cheese is fully incorporated.
Check seasoning and add more salt and pepper to taste.
Don’t boil the mix or the sauce might split!
Serve over buttered noodles or with mash potato.
Sep 28, 2020
Crispy sesame-crusted mushroom poke bowl
Ingredients
Sesame-crusted mushrooms:
200 g button mushrooms
¼ cup white sesame seeds
1 tbsp black nigella seeds
⅓ cup panko crumbs
Pinch of sea salt
1 egg
Dash of milk
Vegetable oil (for frying)
Poke bowl ingredients:
2 cups pre-cooked brown rice
1 bunch broccolini
⅓ cup frozen edamame beans, defrosted
1 avocado, sliced
¾ cup red cabbage, thinly sliced
1 small cucumber, thinly sliced
4 -5 radishes, thinly sliced
2 shallots, thinly sliced (white part only)
Dressing:
1 tsp white miso paste
3 tbsp mirin
1 tsp peanut butter
1 ½ tbsp tbsp vegetable oil
Directions
In a bowl combine the sesame seeds, nigella seeds, panko crumbs and a pinch of sea salt, stir to mix through.
In another bowl whisk together with a fork the egg and a dash of milk.
Heat up a deep sided saucepan filled with vegetable oil (3cm deep) to frying point (205 degrees C). To test if it’s at the right temperature, add a pinch of panko crumbs; if the oil bubbles then it’s ready.
Add the button mushrooms in batches to the whisked egg mixture, then roll them in the sesame / panko crumb mixture until they get an even crumb coating.
In batches, add the mushrooms to the heated oil and fry, using tongs turn them over after the outer crumb turns a crispy golden brown. Remove from the oil and place on a paper towel to absorb any excess oil. Repeat the process until all of the mushrooms have been cooked. It is best to cook these in batches and not to overcrowd the saucepan.
Blanch the broccolini and edamame in boiling water until the broccolini is cooked and crunchy and the edamame has changed to a bright green colour. Drain and set aside.
To make the dressing:
Combine all the ingredients in a small jug, stir well to combine and to dissolve any miso paste lumps.
To assemble the poke bowls:
Start with a base of pre-cooked brown rice, follow by arranging the vegetables over the top and around the edges of the bowls. Finish with adding the crispy crumbed mushrooms in the centre and sprinkle over the thinly sliced shallots.
Serve with the miso dressing poured over the top.
Note: this recipe includes peanuts. If you have nut allergies, please omit this ingredient.
Sep 28, 2020
Baked polenta tart with sautéed mushrooms, caramelised red onion, and spinach
Ingredients
Polenta tart base:
1 cup coarse polenta
1 garlic clove, minced
500 ml vegetable or chicken stock
⅓ cup grated parmesan cheese
2 tsp fresh thyme leaves
1 ½ tsp rosemary leaves
1 tbsp unsalted butter for cooking
Sea salt to taste
Tart toppings:
150 g Swiss Brown mushrooms, thinly sliced
100 g button mushrooms, thinly sliced
1 tsp fresh thyme leaves
150 g (1 bunch) English spinach, rinsed, ripped into smaller pieces
1 red onion thinly sliced into half moons
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
100 g marinated goats cheese
Unsalted butter for cooking
Sea salt to taste
To serve:
Parsley, roughly chopped
Directions
Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees C.
Lightly grease a 35cm pie tin and set aside.
Warm up a heavy base medium saucepan to medium heat, add a knob of butter. Once the butter has melted, add the minced garlic and sauté until it turns a light golden colour. Add the polenta and stir thoroughly to coat in butter.
Gradually pour in the stock while continually stirring to prevent lumps forming. Once the polenta thickens and the grains soften, add the grated parmesan cheese, fresh herbs, pinch of salt and a good amount of cracked pepper.
Remove from the heat and turn the polenta out into the pie tin. Using a spatula, level out the polenta and allow for a nice thick side crust (the pie crust is meant to be thicker than a traditional pastry crust). Trim off any excess.
Place the tart casing in the oven to cook for 25-30 minutes or until it becomes crispy and a darker golden colour.
To cook the caramelised onion, add a knob of butter to a heavy base frying pan. Add the thinly sliced red onion and allow to sweat down, stirring until the onions become translucent and soft.
Add the brown sugar and balsamic vinegar and stir through. Cook for a further 5 minutes while the sugar dissolves and the balsamic vinegar caramelises. Remove from the heat and set aside.
In the same fry pan on medium heat add a small knob of butter and the English spinach. Sauté until it becomes soft and wilted, remove from the heat and set aside.
Using the same fry pan, add a knob of butter followed by the sliced mushrooms and the thyme. Sauté until the mushrooms become tender and juicy. Remove from the heat and set aside.
To fill the tart, spread out the caramelised onion across the base. Follow with the wilted spinach and top with the sautéed mushrooms. Finish off with spoonfuls of marinated goats cheese, a drizzle of the oil from the cheese and a sprinkle of fresh parsley over the top.
Serve warm straight away.
Jun 22, 2020
Mushroom Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Burnt Butter Sauce
Ingredients
2 medium sweet potatoes
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp salt flakes
Flour for dusting
250 g Swiss brown and button mushrooms, chopped in quarters
10 sage leaves
2 tbsp toasted pinenuts (optional)
½ lemon
50 g butter
Grated Parmesan
Directions
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius. Poke a few holes in the sweet potatoes with a fork, and then bake them for at least 1 hour on a bed of rock salt in the oven until they are tender and the skin starts to look wrinkly.
While the potato is still warm, peel the skin away from the flesh and set aside to cool slightly.
If you have a potato ricer, put the sweet potatoes through this. Otherwise you can use a fine sieve and push the potato through with a ladle or wooden spoon.
Place the flour on a board, or your kitchen bench. Make a well in the centre and add the riced / sieved sweet potatoes to the well. Season with salt and pepper.
Using your hands, work the sweet potato into the flour until it’s fully combined. You don’t want the dough to be sticky so keep adding flour gradually until you get a nice dry dough. This could take quite a bit of extra flour.
Once fully combined, roll the dough into a ball and cut it into 4 even pieces. Roll each piece into a long sausage, each about a finger in thickness.
Cut the rolls of dough into 2cm little pillows of gnocchi, and gently toss each piece into some flour on your work bench to ensure that it’s dry. At this point you could also use a gnocchi board or fork to press grooves into each piece of gnocchi to make it more professional looking but this is optional and tastes just as good without!
To cook the gnocchi, bring a large pot of water to the boil and add the salt. Blanch the sweet potato gnocchi in salted boiling water until they all float. Then drain, reserving a little of the cooking water.
In a large frying pan, over a high heat, add a splash of olive oil and a teaspoon of butter, add the quartered mushrooms and cook for a few minutes until golden. Spoon out the mushrooms into a bowl.
Using the same frying pan, add the cooked gnocchi and sear until crispy. Add the remaining butter, pine nuts, sage leaves and mushrooms you just set aside. Cook until the butter starts to burn. Then add lemon juice and Parmesan and serve.
TIPS
• Putting the potatoes through a sieve or potato ricer is a vital step to making gnocchi, as this breaks down the starch
• If you make gnocchi often, a potato ricer is a fairly inexpensive kitchen tool that is handy to have
Jun 16, 2020
Mushroom Chicken Ballotine & White Bean Salad
Ingredients
3 large chicken thigh fillets, skin on deboned
1 free range chorizo sausage
4 cup mushrooms
8 thin jamon or pancetta slices
12 Swiss Brown mushrooms
1 can lima beans (or chickpeas) drained and rinsed
1 red chilli, seeds removed, finely diced
1 Spanish onion, finely diced
1 bunch chives, finely diced
2 tbsp olives, roughly chopped
3 tbsp kewpie mayo
2 tbsp butter and drizzle of olive oil for basting
Directions
Bring a large pot of water to boil. To make the Ballotine filling, cut the mushrooms in half and add to a food processor with the chorizo sausage. Blend until it comes together as a paste.
Get your chicken thigh fillets and ensure they are uniform in thickness. If the thighs are particularly uneven, use a meat cleaver or rolling pin to flatten the thicker parts slightly, but don’t over do it.
Place a large sheet of foil on your bench, and put a sheet of baking paper on top of the foil. Place your jamon or pancetta slices down on the baking paper, each slice slightly overlapping the other. Place chicken thigh fillets (skin side down), on top of the jamon or pancetta in a row.
Next, spread the mushroom and chorizo mix across the length of your chicken, slightly in from the edge.
Using both the foil and baking paper, start to roll your chicken over itself, until it forms a tight cylinder with the foil and baking paper completely wrapping the outside of the Ballotine. Pinch both ends of the foil and twist them tight like the end of a lolly wrapper so that the Ballotine is completely sealed.
Place the rolled chicken parcel into the medium-large sized pot filled with boiling water and poach for around 20 minutes, or until it is just cooked through.
After 20 minutes, carefully remove the parcel from the boiling water and unwrap the foil and paper parcel.
Add butter and oil to a frying pan, and once hot add the cooked Ballotine to crisp up the outside jamon or pancetta layer. At the same time, quarter your Swiss Brown mushrooms and add them to the same pan to cook alongside the Ballotine in the butter and olive oil.
Baste the Ballotine with the mushroom butter juices for 2-3 minutes, and once golden and crispy, remove from the pan and leave to rest while you make the salad.
To make the salad: Place the beans, chilli, onion, chives and chopped olives in a bowl. Add the cooked mushrooms, but save the mushroom juice. Add a generous squeeze of kewpie mayo and mix until everything is well combined.
To assemble the dish, spoon the bean salad onto a plate. Cut the chicken Ballotine into thick 3-4cm slices, and add to the plate. Drizzle over the mushroom butter jus and garnish with extra chopped chives.
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