Ok, I promise to stop singing the praises of my new best friend, Mr Yotam Ottolenghi soon, but dammit, he just keeps inspiring me with his lovely recipes. I´m not vegetarian, I couldn´t give up bacon, jamon and a nice blue steak, but his recipes are very vegetable focused and they could almost make you forget how wonderful a crispy roast chicken tastes. Almost.
Another of his recipes featuring mixed mushrooms appealed to me, although I had to use a bag of mixed frozen mushrooms at this time of year. Roll on autumn when I can make this with fresh ones. The method I used to cook them is a little different from the original recipe, I have put the original ingredients in brackets after my version. If you make this with fresh mushrooms I think it will be less “saucy” (it certainly looked drier in the photo in the book) but I rather liked having something to mop up with my bread!
Ingredients (my version serves 2, Ottolenghi version serves 6-8)
- 450g mixed mushrooms (Otto recipe – 2kg)
- 3 tbsp olive oil (Otto recipe – 160ml)
- 2 sprigs of thyme (Otto recipe – 30g chopped)
- 3 crushed garlic cloves (10 cloves)
- 2 tbs chopped chives (100g chopped flat leaf parsley)
- 1 cinnamon stick (6 cinnamon sticks)
- 1 tsp coarse sea salt (25g sea salt)
- 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper (1 tbsp)
- Grated zest of 1 lemon and juice of half (60ml lemon juice)
In a large pan heat the oil slightly then add the garlic and mushroom, fry gently until they mushrooms release their liquid, add the thyme and cinnamon and turn up the heat. Cook until the liquid has reduced a little, turn off the heat then stir in the chives, lemon zest and juice. Remove the cinnamon stick, taste and season. I served with a chicken breast which I had cut into thin fillets, marinated for 30 minutes in olive oil and lemon juice and quickly cooked in the griddle pan.
Chica Andaluza 