Grown and Gathered: Creamy Mushrooms

Autumn is wild mushroom season, but in Australia our wild mushroom varieties are limited (as they aren’t native). So seeing wild mushrooms in their native landscape in Italy was a joy. In Calabria, in the deep south, we were told there are just so, so many porcini and tartufi (truffles) during this time that they don’t know what to do with them. They grate tartufi over everything and eat porcini every day. They say they eat so many porcini and tartufi that they are completely sick of them for the rest of the year! Life should be so abundant.

This dish is inspired by a dish we had in one such area. It was so rich, had a wonderful slippery texture from the porcini and was deeply umami-meets- earthy in flavour. We’ve since discovered that it’s just as amazing with regular white or brown Swiss mushrooms, or make it with all the wonderful saffron milk caps, slippery jacks or crab brittle gills available to us during wild mushroom season. Our version is extra rich and garlicky. An incredibly simple and easy but super-rewarding dish to celebrate the wonderful, abundant mushroom. And it makes a great pasta sauce.

Creamy Mushrooms - Ingredients

extra-virgin olive oil

3 garlic cloves, crushed

1 packed teaspoon thyme leaves, finely chopped

1 rosemary sprig, leaves stripped and finely chopped

1⁄2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

350 g mushrooms of your choice, cut into 5 mm slices

250 ml (1 cup) chicken stock

1⁄4 teaspoon unrefined salt

2 heaped teaspoons double cream

2 tablespoons dry white wine

Method

Add a generous splash of oil to a large, heavy-based frying pan over medium heat. Add the garlic, herbs and pepper and sauté for 1–2 minutes until the garlic is beginning to turn golden.

Add the mushrooms and more oil (the mushrooms love to soak it all up), stir through and cook for 4–5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms collapse and turn dark and glossy. Add the stock and salt, stir through and simmer, uncovered, for 6–7 minutes until the liquid has reduced by half.

Once reduced, lower the heat and add the cream and wine, stirring until the cream is well combined. Then increase the heat and simmer, uncovered, for 7–8 minutes, agitating the pan occasionally, until the liquid has come together as a thick, oily sauce that coats the mushrooms. Serve hot.

From The Village cookbook by Grown & Gathered. More goodness from them here.