Tasty Bits and Bites: Mushrooms 3 Ways

Risotto Ai Funghi

Armed with two paper bags full of a variety of locally grown mushrooms from the recent mushroom festival, I needed to decide what dishes would best highlight their flavor. While studying Italian and living in Rosignano Maritimo the summer before my school year in Venice, we were often fed mushroom risotto as wild “funghi” are commonly found in Italy. At the time, since I was not a fan of mushrooms, I ate the meal with little enthusiasm. Now seemed like a good time to give the dish another chance.

Risotto is best eaten right when it is done cooking while the texture is still creamy. In Italy, when you order risotto, you know they are making it to order as they tell you it will be at least 20 minutes. I’ve not had much success with risotto in the US, so I typically make it at home rather than order it out. Knowing that there would be a big pot of risotto to consume, I invited some friends over for dinner. Sam, having gone to the mushroom festival with me, brought mushroom soup. It was full of flavor and nicely creamy without being too thick. The mushrooms used included the portobellos, baby bellas, and enoki, in addition to potatoes and chick peas which gave the soup a hearty quality.

We started the night with almonds, cubed manchego cheese and local cheddar cheese made from raw milk, olives, and spicy Philly Pickles along with a cocktail that included citron vodka, fresh lime juice, triple sec and pomegranate juice in equal proportions. The first course was the mushroom soup while the mushroom risotto and garlic green beans with tarragon were the main course. The mushroom flavor was very apparent in the risotto while the creamy texture of the rice, broth and cheese mixture was comforting; definitely a dish I appreciated this time around.

The dinner was served with a Chardonnay from Crane Lake in Napa, which is a decent wine for $6. Pennsylvania, with its archaic alcohol regulations seemingly left over from prohibition, is an extremely frustrating place to shop for wine. The selection is very limited and every “State Store” has exactly the same options, which cost more than other states due to the higher liquor taxes.

For dessert, my co-worker, Gaylen, brought tiramisu. What a perfect finish to the rest of the meal! It was excellent and surprising to find something so delicious came from the Acme Supermarket. The density of the cake was ideal – not too heavy and not too airy, perfectly absorbent – so that each forkful with the cream, cocoa, coffee and liquor was transformed into a sublime bite.

Here’s how to make the mushroom risotto:

Ingredients

12 oz of mushrooms (an type will do. I used portobellos, baby bellas, and hen of the woods)

herbes de Provence (or other dried herbs like thyme or oregano)

butter

olive oil

1/2 large chopped onion

1 1/2 cups of Arborio rice

5 cups of chicken broth (or vegetable broth). I like the boxed kind from Trader Joes but bullion works fine to.

1/2 c white wine

3/4 c of fresh grated parmesan

1/2 c of half and half.

Chopped parsely

Start by preparing the mushrooms. Clean them by using a dry paper towel to wipe them off. Don’t wash them with water or they will get soggy. Pull the stems off the mushrooms. If using portobellos, scrape off the dark layer on the underside of the cap. I just learned this at the mushroom festival. I think it’s because the taste can be bitter. Slice the mushrooms and sauté in butter with salt and some dried herbs. I used herbs de Provence that a friend brought back from France. I like how their earthy flavor of savory, fennel, basil, thyme and lavender compliments the mushrooms. Start with about 3 tbs of butter, adding more if needed for the mushrooms to be completely coated. Cook until the mushrooms are soft, about 3 minutes. Set aside. Many recipes have you cook the risotto condiments in with the rice to further the flavor absorption into the rice. I tend to decide based on the ingredient. Since mushrooms can be a bit delicate in form, I add them towards the end so that they maintain their size rather than breaking down in the dish.

On the stove top, heat the broth to a low, continuous simmer. Add salt if the broth is unsalted. Meanwhile, sauté the onion in a little olive oil until soft in a large pot. A cast iron pot is great for this dish as it evenly distributes the heat and helps prevent the rice from burning. I used my Le Creuset 3 quart soup pot which is one of my most valued and used kitchen implements – well worth the investment. Add the rice, coating with the oil, then add the wine and stir often over medium heat. Once all the wine is absorbed start adding the warm broth a half cup at a time – again stirring often and adding more liquid until almost all absorbed. When the rice is nearly cooked (about 18 minutes) add the mushrooms and most of the grated cheese, leaving some to sprinkle over the dish when serving. Then add the half and half and any more broth needed to finish the rice. The stove should be turned off when most of the liquid is absorbed and the rice is still ever so slightly al dente as it will continue to cook after the heat is off. Mix in the parsley and pepper to taste then let the dish cool slightly, but serve immediately after while the texture is still creamy and warm. Sprinkle with the rest of the grated cheese. While this dish is best served right away, this is not to say the left-overs are anything to snub!

Mushroom Bruschetta

Erika, a friend whom I met through my local coffee shop, Mugshots, when she was coordinating their local food buying club, invited me to dinner last week. We had seen the movie “Julie and Julia” together which inspired her to try more Julia Child recipes. This night she was preparing a pan fried chicken breast cooked, of course, in clarified butter. I appreciate the recent trend back to using fat, particularly butter. One thing I learned from my success with Weight Watchers is to allow yourself the things you enjoy in moderation rather than overcompensating with more of the less caloric but ultimately less satisfying foods. Two bites of cambozola cheese are much more satisfying that five bites of any fat free cheese. And the soft, yellow butter from the local amish farms here is the best I have tasted – truly a treat.

I wanted to bring a dish to share with the meal – something quick and simple that would use a fair amount of the mushrooms that I still had from the festival. An appetizer is usually a good item to contribute as there is less concern about it conflicting with the main meal your host is making. Bruschetta, toasted garlic bread with any number of toppings, came to mind. I prepared the mushrooms the same way I did for the risotto above. For the bread, I toasted slices of pumpkin seed roll that came from Winnie’s Le Bus, so named as they used to sell their bread from a bus in West Philly. It’s now my favorite, local Manayunk restaurant that has comforting, well made and well priced food in a cozy, brick and timber space on Main Street. I had planned on buying a baguette but they were all out. This was actually fortuitous as the seeded bread improved the dish with its nutty texture.

After the bread was toasted in the oven, I brushed the slices with olive oil and rubbed a garlic clove over each piece. After that, I just topped it with the warm mushrooms, some grated parmesan, chopped Italian parsley and a sprinkle of salt. Buon apetito!

“Deconstructed” Bacon, Mushroom, Cheeseburger

The most recent episode of Top Chef had the contestants deconstructing a classic dish such as Eggs Florentine, Rueben Sandwiches and Meat Lasagna. Basically it meant that the participants were to take the typical ingredients of their traditional dish and reinterpret them such that they may no longer resemble the original dish but the taste is reminiscent of it. This seemed like a tough, unfamiliar challenge and you could see a lot of the cooks struggled with it. It made me wonder what I might be able to “deconstruct”.

Recently I have been craving hamburgers, but haven’t given in as my personal policy has been to try to avoid eating beef unless I know how it was raised and processed. I ordered grass fed beef from a local farm through Mugshots, so I could make a burger. In my refrigerator were mushrooms, bacon and goat cheese as I was intending to try a variation on the stuffed mushroom that Miguel Morales made at the festival. I could make a traditional mushroom, bacon, and onion cheeseburger – or I could try make a deconstructed burger. What I came up with was ravioli (the pasta being the bread) stuffed with these ingredients and topped with a spicy red sauce as the “ketchup”.

I enjoy experimenting with ravioli as it offers an opportunity to create “the perfect bite” through variations on fillings, but making the pasta confounds me. How can something with just three ingredients be so hard to make? Plus who has that kind of time? I previously searched out and found pre-made sheets of pasta at the farmer’s market in Ardmore which served me well enough, however I recently discovered an even better option – egg roll wrappers! They have the exact same ingredients as pasta and available at most grocery stores. I like how they are rolled so thin as the filling can really stand out is not overwhelmed by a doughy pasta.

I cooked all the ingredients separately, mixed them together, filled the pasta and made a red sauce. The end product was very tasty – one where the mushrooms certainly stood out, but I don’t know that it REALLY tasted like a cheeseburger, perhaps more of an innovative take on beef stroganoff…so I still need to satisfy the burger desire. In the meantime, here’s how to make the ravioli.

Ingredients

Filling:

1/2 lb grass fed ground beef

3/4 lb of assorted mushrooms (I recommend most anything but button mushrooms)

olive oil

4 oz. goat cheese

1/4 onion, diced

dried herbs

3 slices of bacon

Egg roll wrappers (you can use wonton wrappers as well)

One beaten egg

Sauce

1 28 oz can of tomatoes (diced is easier)

1/2 diced onion

2 to 3 cloves of diced garlic

salt, dried herbs and crushed red pepper to taste

chopped Italian parsley

Wipe the mushrooms clean with a dry paper towel. Dice to a fine crumble or pulse in a food processor. Sautee in oil until coated, add dried herbs (again I used the multipurpose herbes de Provence). Set aside. Fry the bacon until crispy, crumble and set aside. Reserve some of the bacon fat. Saute the onion and ground beef in the reserved fat until the meat is completely cooked. Break down the meat into very small bits while cooking. Mix all of the above and add the goat cheese to coat and bind it all together. Taste and add salt if needed. One can make this a vegetarian dish by eliminating the meat and doubling the mushroom quantity. I would also suggest adding some toasted pine nuts.

Dust a cutting board with flour and layout two sheets of the egg roll wrappers, cut into four equal squares. Remove the top squares from the bottom squares and place a dollop of the meat mixture on each square. Brush the beaten egg around the four sides of each square and seal the top square over the filling and bottom square. The egg will be the glue to hold the ravioli together. Continue doing this until the filling is gone. Then dust the bunch with some more flour so they don’t stick together.

To make the sauce, sauté the onion and garlic together until soft, then add the canned tomatoes, herbs, salt and crushed red peppers. Cook at a simmer while filling the ravioli. Check and stir every so often. When the sauce has sufficiently thickened, puree it. I find an immersion blender is perfect for this task.