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 
My husband doesn’t like mushrooms, but he LOVES cinnamon…perhaps he’ll give this a go! Looks delish! 🙂
Funny how some people don´t like mushrooms…more for you that way!
Yes, that’s the way I like to see it, too! 🙂
Ottolenghi isn’t vegetarian, but he does have a talent for bringing out the best in vegetables. Did you see his TV programme around Christmas? He went to Israel to rediscover the food of his youth (Jerusalem on a Plate). It was fantastic and often very simple. I bet yours was good 😉
Wish I´d seen that – will have to look it up! It makes me think of Italian antipasti – few Italians are (or at least, were) vegetarian, but there is a large focus on using their wonderful vegetables and making them shine in many dishes.
I love mushrooms, and I think the sauce looks just right!
I like my food “saucy”!
Very nice!
It was very good!
He writes in the Telegraph UK, but never really took much notice. Now I’ll have to.
Do you have a particular cook book?
I have “Ottolenghi The Cookbook” but I also hear that Perfect is good. Will be buying that next I hope! Got mine through Amazon…
Love the idea of cinnamon with mushrooms…
Unusual mix for me too but it worked so well together!
Just one more reason I really need to check out his cookbook! What a creative mixture. 🙂
It sounds a bit wacky from the title, but it really does work well!
Love mushrooms and cook them in various ways at least a couple of times a week. Am very interested in this version as I have never thought of using cinnamon! Thanks 🙂 ! In Australia we have no problems in getting fresh mushrooms, be they ordinary buttons, Swiss Browns or the very many Asian kinds, throughout the year: it’s just that they are a wee bit cheaper in the winter months!
That sounds like a lot of lovely mushrooms you have available – am very jealous!
I never would have thought to pair mushrooms and cinnamon, but I guess both tastes are a bit “earthy.” This looks very tasty, as usual!
Yes, it was an unusual pairing and the cinnamon flavour is very subtle. It was very good indeed!
This looks so enticing. I love mushrooms… there is a squeal all round when we see the first ones peek up in the fields in Autumn.
Yes, foraging for mushrooms is really exciting – especially when you come home with enough for a decent portion!
That looks so good. I’ll have to give it a go
I wasn´t sure how it would turn out, but I have to say…well worth making!
That looks wonderful and I agree with you about having sauce to mop up with bread! Ottolenghi’s recipes are a delight – I love his book and I always read his recipes in the Guardian too.
I shall have to start looking up the Guardian online as I hadn´t realised he published there too.
Mmm it looks so delicious!
Thank you – it was very tasty indeed!
Ottolenghi’s book has so many delicious things. Our house is on the edge of being vegetarian so his recipes work wonderfully for us. Nice mushroom idea.
It´s great for demi-veg (I like that word!) people 🙂
Ok, I’m convinced…I’ve been hearing about this book for more than a year, and it sounded good, but the mushrooms just catapulted it to the top of the Must-Have list…
I may have to use dried – any suggestions for that?
You won´t regret buying it! In fact, I just packed it this morning ready for nest week 🙂 I think dried would be good too. Just use about half the amount of a good mixture and maybe save some of the soaking water if you need it while cooking. Mmmmmm!
Keep these divine recipes coming Tanya!
🙂 Mandy
Ah thanks…will do!
I would never have thought to prepare mushrooms with cinnamon and lemon. I have to try this, Tanya! I love the sound of it. Are you getting a percentage of the sales for this man’s cookbooks? I bet these posts of yours will result in more than a few being sold. 🙂
Wouldn´t it be fab if I was on commission – I would probably have at least enough now to buy a coffee! It does sound like a very odd pairing of ingredients, but it was so good, just a hint of cinnamon and lots of lovely lemon tang.
I too couldn’t be a vegetarian but do love to do more interesting things with veggies, and also to cater for my friends who do eschew meat. This is a combo I would never have thought of but it looks gorgeous.
It´s always good to have a few tasty veggie recipes up your sleeve (mind you, I don´t know any Spanish vegetarians!).
Isn’t it illegal to be a Spanish vegetarian?
I thought cinnamon only went on toast…I’m learning so much! Looks good and I have to remember to have some bread for the sauce.
Definitely bread for the sauce…also helps with the washing up to start with “clean” plates!
Tanya, I’ll sing O’s praises along with you! His style is incredible. What surprising and wonderful flavors in this dish! Mystery solved. I’ll be making this tonight – the Guinea Pig’s favorite food obsession! Thanks for pointing this one out – I’d missed it somehow!
Sometimes we whizz through the books so excited that we dont look properly at the recipes and then miss them…well, that´s my style at least!
mine too…and looking through O’s books, it’s excitement upon excitement!
We had this the other night Tanya, and had to make a few mushroom substitutions too, but loved it!
I am liking the combination of mushrooms with cinamon, lemon zest and juice, and chives!!! Gotta try it!!
The chives were because I didn´t have anything else but snipped in at the last minute they were lovely!
Did I tell you my mother’s obsessed with this guy too? 😀 Every time I speak to her on the phone I’ll invariably hear “omg, I just made xyz by Yotam Ottolenghi”, haha :D. Mushroom and cinnamon sounds like a great combo. Must have a lovely warming, satisfying flavour!
I think once you get one of the books, that´s it….Ottolenghi junkie 😉
Keep on cooking and blogging these recipes, I’m loving them 🙂 We often cook mushrooms with tarragon but I need to try this one as the cinnmon sounds delic. And I’ve never tried freezing mushrooms – great idea
Carry On Cooking 🙂
It will definitely be a case of Carry on Cooking next week (I´ll be Hattie Jacques and Big Man can be Sid James with his naughty laugh) probably more like in the conditions of Carry on Camping! They sell the bags of ready frozen mixed mushrooms here as we just don´t ever seem to get a good variety of fresh unless you know where to hunt them out or go to the really expensive supermarket which is miles away 😦
This is an interesting flavour for me, never had tried mushrooms on lemon and cinnamon. Honestly it sounds so yummy
I was unsure when I wsaw the recipe, but it was really so good!
I didn’t know that you could freeze mushrooms. Your combination of the mushrooms and chicken look very good.
They asre quite watery when defrosted, but when cooked the juices become quite intense!
I’m sure the flavor is great. I may try freezing some of the seasonal ones myself.
I just had to Google Mr Ottolenghi as I had never heard of him…I take it he is the new Gordon Ramsey or Jamie Oliver or something similar and everyone absolutely positively HAS to have his books or be square (like me?) lol. I checked him out because you are the third blog that I follow that has been raving about this person and initially I thought that he was Japanese from his name lol. Ok, so call me out of the loop but I figure I don’t need to buy the book because lovely people like you will keep posting his recipes and giving me the best recipes with no outlay (Cheers! 😉 ). A most interesting recipe and not a combination that I would have thought would work…the jury is out on this recipe. I like my mushrooms treated with simple respect and cooked in a hot frypan fresh from the field with butter and perhaps some garlic (EVERYTHING is better with garlic…) and served with respect as the main event. I have been known to dabble with wild mushrooms served over baked polenta but they need to be numero uno and given kudos, much like the first asparagus. Can’t see why we would put the strength of cinnamon with them? A bit like putting pineapple into savoury things…NUP! Cheers for the recipe and for the inspiration to head on over to my Google search tab that is always open (so that I can test my atrocious spelling…) to hunt Mr Ottolenghi and to give me something to check out later on. I have never been one to follow a trend just because it’s the latest and greatest and am going to have to delve a bit further than mushrooms with cinnamon before I am convinced that this man deserves a position on my tried and true recipe shelf…till then I will just pinch the recipes that I like online 😉
Yes, he does seem to be Mr Trendy at the moment, you´re right! I too think mushrooms often deserve to be the stars of the show and this recipe with cinnamon really does bring out their flavour – the cinnamon is so very subtle (and I guess you could leave it out). And I am sure there will be plenty of his recipes out here in blogland…so you are wise to hold off and make your own mind up 🙂
Frugal comes before wise and I have been stung by the “Latest Greatest…” before…I wait to see if Mr/Ms. latest greatest live up to the hype and can give me what I want from food…delicious, simple, flavour laden and hearty…no fluffy fru-fru 2oz on a plate for this Antipodean antiquarian!