Nov 20, 2020
Cavatelli with Braised Mushrooms, Beans and Radicchio
Ingredients
¼ cup olive oil
1 medium brown onion, diced
300 g button mushrooms, thickly sliced
½ small fennel bulb, thinly sliced
4 cloves garlic, minced
½ head of radicchio, cut into large chunks
1 sprig of rosemary
1 bay leaf
½ cup white wine
1 can cannellini beans, drained
500 ml vegan chicken or veg stock
2 tbsp vegan butter
½ packet Cavatelli, cooked as per instructions.
Salt and pepper to season
Directions
Heat olive oil in a large pan over medium heat. Add the diced onions along with a big pinch of salt and cook for a few minutes or until they
begin to soften.
Throw in the sliced mushrooms and cook until they start to turn golden.
Add the fennel to the pan and cook for a few minutes before adding the garlic. Cook for a further minute. Season with salt and pepper.
Scatter the chopped radicchio into the pan and stir well to separate and coat then add the rosemary and bay leaf.
Pour in the white wine and reduce by half, then add in the drained beans. Stir to combine, then add the stock. Simmer over a medium-low heat until the liquid has reduced by half. To finish the sauce, add the butter and Parmesan and stir until melted and combined. Sprinkle over the parsley and stir through.
Add the cooked pasta into the pan over a low heat and toss well to coat. Check seasoning. Serve with extra Parmesan and a splash of extra virgin olive oil.
Recipe by Shannon Martinez
Sep 28, 2020
Baked breakfast mushrooms stuffed with spinach, feta and egg
Ingredients
4 large flat mushrooms (large Portobello mushrooms also work well)
1 big handful of baby spinach leaves
1 ½ tbsp marinated creamy feta cheese
4 medium free-range eggs
2 thyme sprigs
Cracked pepper to taste
Sea salt to taste
1 tbsp parsley, roughly chopped, to serve
Directions
Pre heat the oven to 180 degrees C.
To clean the mushrooms, brush the skin with a dry paper towel to remove any dirt.
Using a small paring knife, remove the stems.
Fill the base of the mushrooms with the baby spinach leaves, ripping larger leaves into smaller pieces.
Carefully crack an egg into each mushroom on top of the spinach.
Add a spoonful of marinated feta cheese as well as a drizzle of the feta marinating oil on top of the cracked egg.
Add a pinch of salt and pepper and sprinkle a few leaves of the fresh thyme on top.
Bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes or until the mushroom has softened and the egg is still soft inside.
Serve straight away topped with parsley.
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.
Jun 10, 2020
BBQ Mushroom & Haloumi Flatbreads
Ingredients
500 g Self raising flour
500 g Greek yoghurt
6 Stems fresh thyme (leaves only)
4 Stems fresh rosemary (leaves only)
Salt and pepper to taste
Olive oil
Extra flour for dusting the bench and kneading the dough
3 Flat mushrooms
Small packet haloumi sliced
100 g Grated mozzarella to sprinkle
4 Garlic cloves minced
Leftover rosemary and thyme leaves for marinade
Directions
Put the flour in a big mixing bowl and make a well in the centre. In the same bowl, add all the yogurt into the well.
Mix together with your hands until the ingredients are combined to form a dough. (If the dough appears too dry, add more yogurt. If it is too wet, add more flour.
Add a generous pinch of salt, some pepper, fresh thyme, rosemary and a splash of olive oil to the dough and mix again lightly with your hands.
Sprinkle your workbench with flour and place the dough on top, and start to kneed the ball of dough with your hands until it becomes a nice, smooth ball, being careful not to overwork the dough.
Divide the dough into 8 equal portions and using a rolling pin, roll the dough into flat, long elliptical circles – you want it thin, but not so thin that you can’t pick up the rolled out dough!
Leave the dough to rest for a couple of minutes on your floured workbench whilst you make the mushroom mix. Cut the flat mushrooms and the haloumi into thick slices. They should be roughly the same thickness (just under 1cm).
Using a sharp knife, score the mushrooms slices on both sides, with shallow, diagonal lines that form a crisscross pattern, taking care not to cut through the mushroom.
Add the mushroom and haloumi slices to a bowl, with 2-3 tbsp olive oil, extra thyme leaves and garlic. Mix well and let it marinate for a few minutes.
To cook your flatbreads: Fire up your barbecue to a medium heat. Once hot and ready, brush one side of your flatbread with olive oil and grill this oil side down for 4 minutes (until you get grill marks on the underside of the flatbread).
At the same time, cook your mushroom and haloumi mix on the other side of the barbecue for 4 minutes, turning halfway through.
When one side of the flatbread is cooked, turn it over and sprinkle with grated mozzarella – the residue heat will start to melt it. Add the grilled mushroom and haloumi mix on top, alternating between mushroom and haloumi slices. Dress with fresh thyme leaves, and an extra drizzle of olive oil.
Remove carefully from the barbecue, slice, and serve on a board with hummus, pesto or baba ganoush.
TIPS
• Try adding different herbs to flavour the dough if you prefer.
• Scoring your mushroom slices creates extra ways for the mushrooms to soak up the delicious marinade flavours.
• Mushroom flats are best used in this recipe because they have a bigger surface area to caramelise.
• You can make a vegan version by using a non-dairy yoghurt for the dough, and extra mushrooms on top!
Recent Comments