Wild Mushrooms on Toast

No pictures for this one yet, but I’ll edit them in next time I make it.

When I was but a tiny and adorable child I lived in a pub. My parents ran the place and we lived upstairs.

The best thing about the place (I was too young to appreciate the free booze) were the woods that started at the bottom of the garden and stretched out further than a child can walk, and were therefore, in my mind, infinite. There were broken trees and stumps to play on and bluebells everywhere. I found the mushrooms the most fascinating. I didn’t spot many varieties, mainly just the yellow spongy ones and the ones that make trees look like they have ears.

You think that looks weird now? Try being a child faced with that shit. It blew my square mind.

Anyway, even though I would certainly never recommend just eating any old fungus that you find, I’ve always thought of foraging with a certain sense of enchantment, and if I had the choice I would absolutely turn into a Wild Woman of the Woods. I would no doubt be misunderstood and eventually burned as a witch, but it would definitely be fun while it lasted.

All of this has absolutely nothing to do with where I get the wild mushrooms for this dish as I don’t pick them myself but get them from my greengrocer. But the fact that someone has picked them makes me feel happy. Plus they look really, really cool. Tinges of blue and orange mixed with beige, cream and bright white. It’s like Changing Rooms on a plate, but tasteful.

You can make this easily enough with regular button mushrooms, but wild mushrooms are meatier and don’t expel as much liquid. If you do use farmed mushrooms I would recommend straining the liquid off rather than let it evaporate. It’s lovely with a bit of bread to dip in or added to a soup or gravy.

Ingredients

Wild mushrooms (a couple of small punnets or handfuls will serve two)
1 Garlic clove
Olive oil
Handful chopped parsley
Salt and pepper
Dried thyme
2-3 tbsp crème fraiche
1 tbsp white wine vinegar

Crush the garlic and soften in a little olive oil on a low heat.

Clean the mushrooms with a kitchen towel – they’ll absorb water and go slimy if you wash them. Roughly chop and add to the garlic oil.

Season with salt and pepper and leave to fry for 5 - 10min. Add the parsley, vinegar and thyme and continue to cook until the parsley has wilted and melded with the soft mushrooms. Take off the heat and stir in the crème fraiche to finish.

Serve on wholegrain toast.

This is one of my favourite lunches, but I always forget how much the mushrooms reduce during cooking, so throw in a handful more than you think you’ll need. On the other hand, they are quite filling, so you’ll probably be alright. So ignore what I just said.

Oscar's Bistro

Much as I like fine dining, it isn't something I can afford to do an awful lot. Tuesdays at Oscar's has been a life saver if I have something to celebrate without the moolah to do it big style.


Oscar's Bistro is a French restaurant on Chandos Street in Leamington that I'm very fond of. Not a huge selection on the menu, but what's there is good. And Tuesday is Auberge night, which means a set three course meal for £14.50. Thank you very much. OK, so you can't choose your meal, but I've never had a problem with what I've been served, and generous portions mean that I leave so stuffed I have to have a little lie down with severely unbuttoned trousers when I get home.

Last time I was there I had a roasted garlic soup, followed by rump steak and frites and a french apple tart for pudding.

Because everyone has the same meal on Tuesday's, service is super speedy. Sit down, order some drinks, eat some bread, and your starter is suddenly there. This is just as well as it limits the amount of bread I eat beforehand.

One word of advice. Don't fill up on the bread. I know that saying this is fairly redundant because even when I tell myself to stop eating the bread I don't stop eating the bread. It's nice bread, and if I'm sitting down to dinner I'm probably hungry. Why should I not eat the bread right in front of me? That's what it's there for.

Don't fill up on the bread. I'm not kidding about the portion size. By the time I finished the soup, I was already pleasantly full. The soup itself was delicious, sweet and earthy rather than harsh, but it was still powerful stuff. I could smell the garlic on my clothes the following day, and our bathroom smelt, in Pete's own words, like a Frenchman's balls. Not for the faint hearted.

Both Pete and I ordered our steaks rare, but they came out a little uneven - his was clearly a little rarer than mine. This is only a minor point, and after some consideration I decided not to take it personally, as it is difficult to feel hard done by when you have a mouth full of tasty steak. Nicely charred on the outside but still tender and red in the middle. It was served with 'Cafe de Paris' butter. I asked the waitress what was in it as I was hoping to recreate it at home, and was told that it was mainly diced shallots and seasoning, but I'm sure I could also taste tarragon, and possibly some white whine as well. It added a lot of flavour to the steak and melted beautifully over the chips. Sorry, 'frites'. They were unmistakeably Gallic in origin, as no British person would consider slicing potatoes that finely. Very crispy.

Having a sweet tooth I am usually all about the pudding, but on this occasion I could really only half heartedly nibble at the french apple tart. Not that I didn't finish it, because I absolutely did. The apples were buttery and caramelised, but the pastry was a touch disappointing. Not quite as crisp as I was hoping, but hardly a major downer on the evening.

The whole thing was accompanied by a very nice bottle of red (I would tell you what it was, but I've forgotten), and ended with the feeling you get after you dream of eating a giant marshmallow and wake to find your pillow is gone. Did I say pillow? I mean cat.

Highly recommended.

Hob Knobs

Granted, I made these quite a while ago, but it's the sort of thing that sticks in the memory.

I borrowed the cutter from the marvellous Mrs Z. Unfortunately we managed to break it in a game of Prop Improvisation, but it only split at the tip and remains perfectly serviceable.


This is a nice basic recipe that you can add more or less any flavourings to, but be prepared to vary the amount of flour you use.

250g plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
100g castor sugar
100g butter
1 egg
Flavouring (works well with vanilla essence, almond essence and ground almonds, cocoa powder, mixed spice, chopped crystallized ginger, or grated lemon or orange zest).

Beat all the ingredients together thoroughly, or whizz up in a food processor. Add more flour or a little milk until you have a mixture that forms a ball but isn't too gloopy. Roll out on a floured board until about 1/2 cm thick. Cut out as many shapes as you can fit. Ball up and roll out the trimmings and repeat the process.

Lay out your shapes on a floured baking tray and cook at GM 5 for about 15 min until golden brown. They will still be a little soft when they come out, but firm up quite quickly once you get them in the fresh air.

I would particularly recommend these for dunking into tea or coffee, but always remember to hold them by the balls, not the shaft. If you dip the balls in to your tea first (as if it were some sort of teabag), this will result in heavy balls, and some breakage may occur. It is far better etiquette to start with the tip, and work your way down.

So I'm childish. I don't care.

Don't Go Eating My Heart

As my regular followers may have noticed (hi, me), it’s been a while since I last took a picture of my dinner and gave a kitchen appliance a name and pretended it was my boyfriend.

Well, I’m staying with my parents in Reading for a few weeks, which means I don’t do nearly as much cooking. The eating level, however, has remained consistently high. ‘But how?’ you will, for rhetoric’s sake, no doubt be asking. ‘If you’re not cooking then how do you eat?’. To which, of course, the traditional answer is ‘Awful!’ and then we’d have a good laugh and watch Kindergarten Cop.

But no. I’m eating very well, thank you, and I shall tell you for why.


Mother dearest, after several minutes of arguing over whether or not she would let me take a picture (I won).

Today we will have an entry from guest blogger Mrs L, who will be cooking hearts.

What with my dad being a vegetarian, mum gets all excited when one of the kids comes home as it means it’s worth her while to get some meat in. It’s even better when I bring Pete ‘The Meat’ with me, as he has something of a carnivorous appetite. I think it was mum who first suggested having hearts, but Pete was equally enthusiastic, and I think they succeeded in making my father look fairly nauseous while he tucked into a chive omelette.

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STUFFED LAMB’S HEARTS

Can’t see this appealing to everyone in the world but those of a less nervous disposition, and who indulge in the odd offal-fest, should give this a go. The texture is a cross between liver and steak – it’s quite dense and not as strong tasting as other edible organs and really quite delicious. Honest.

Mum used to cook these for Sunday dinner back in the 60s. The stuffing was straight out of the Paxo box. I can’t say I ever saw her actually standing there and shoving stuffing into the ventricles and have an idea that dad used to the do the dirty deed. When I tried this it took me a few minutes to work out where the stuffing went – there are enough pockets to accommodate said stuffing, so use your initiative. I made my own breadcrumb stuffing, but you can use what you want obviously. They don’t take long to cook and they’re cheap and not particularly fatty, so a good all rounder, providing you like the flavour of course.

First time for this one was fairly recently when I was whisked back to the 60s and Sunday afternoon wireless just from the aroma whilst the hearts were roasting. We used to have roast spuds as well, but a nice dollop of mash with good gravy also does the trick.

Allow one lamb’s heart per person

Stuffing for 4 hearts:150 gms breadcrumbs1 small onion, finely chopped4 mushrooms, finely chopped1 tsp dried rosemary1 tsp dried sage1 small clove garlic, crushedsalt and pepper sunflower oil water

Heat about 2 tsps of oil in a frying pan and fry the onion and mushroom gently until both are soft. Season. Put the breadcrumbs in a bowl with the herbs and garlic and more seasoning and mix. Add the softened onion and mushrooms and give a good mix. Add about a tablespoon of water and a tablespoon of oil and mix. The mixture should all come together but add more oil if it’s too dry.

Make sure the hearts are washed and dry. Put the stuffing in any of the heart’s orifices you find, packing it down quite tightly – this may cause some frustration as it tends to ooze out of one orifice as you’re packing it into another, but persevere with it, and place in a roasting dish. If there’s any left over stuffing it can go in the roasting tin with the hearts. Give another sprinkling of oil and seasoning and place in oven, Gas 4 for about 45 mins. Let them rest in a warm place for about 10 mins before serving.

Mrs L

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If this doesn’t sound like your cup of tea, don’t eat the hearts but use them as interesting decorations instead. A couple of years ago mum had the idea of nailing some hearts to the door for Halloween. We live down the road to a cemetery so it seemed apt to keep the atmosphere macabre. The finishing touch was going to be attaching a TENS machine to them (it uses electric currents to relieve muscle pain) and start them beating again, but the pads kept on falling off. It was a shame, but a valiant attempt nevertheless.

My Lovely Greengrocer, and Two Types of Salad

There is something so inherently depressing about supermarket shopping. It elicits a particularly surreal type of ennui, where the sight of apples boxed in polystyrene and wrapped in clingfilm seems at once perfectly reasonable, and so ludicrously unnatural that it makes you giggle hysterically for a second. But only for a second, before you recollect your surroundings and morosely shuffle off to gaze at a chicken that never knew a moment of happiness.

I was resigned to this as a necessary chore until I found my lovely greengrocers, also known as Richard Clarke at 110 Warwick Street.

I was first enticed in by the flowers outside (two bunches of daffs for a pound, or 10p a bunch if they’re already open), but now I don’t get groceries anywhere else. All fruit and veg needs are catered for, plus eggs from a farm down in Stratford upon Avon, milk, cream and a small cheese selection in a little fridge in the corner, and salads all boxed up and ready to go. There’s a big old dumping ground of ‘miscellaneous’ as well. Chopped tomatoes and pork scratching are my standard, but you can also get herbs, vanilla beans, honey, olive oils, anti pasta, cakes and biscuits. I doubt it’s all organic and locally sourced (I’m pretty sure that passionfruit farms in the Midlands are fairly short on the ground), but frankly I don’t care, and if it means I don’t have to go to Tesco’s then I am eternally grateful.

This has, however, affected my cooking habits somewhat. I can’t necessarily rely on them having the exact ingredient I have in mind, but they may have an offer on something completely unexpected. So no more lists for me, and dinner is a spontaneous affair.

Recently there was an offer on blood oranges – 5 for a pound. As a result, I’ve become a little addicted to blood orange salad.

It’s so simple I won’t insult your intelligence by writing down a recipe. Just chopped orange on mixed leaves. You don’t need a dressing as the juice does just as well, but a little salt and pepper and olive oil are pretty tasty additions. It also goes beautifully with a soft, creamy accompaniment, like chopped avocadoes or mozzarella. Tasty.

I have this as a side dish to practically every meal. I have yet to find something it doesn’t go with. You could use regular oranges rather than blood oranges, but I find that the regular ones can be dry and inconsistent. The main benefit of the blood variety, apart from the amazing colour (seriously, fruit that bleeds? How cool is that?), is their juiciness. I’ve never had a duff blood orange.

I’ve also discovered a newfound love of potatoes. I had always considered potatoes to be a practical staple, but not particularly flavoursome. Richard Clarke knows his potatoes. These are some tasty potatoes. I recently picked up a handful of new season King Edwards, just diddy little things, and made a particularly nice warm potato salad.

King Edwards, or salad potatoes like Jersey Royals
Handful of chopped parsley (I got mine from my lovely greengrocer too)
Olive oil
Garlic
4 strips streaky bacon
1 tbsp cider or white wine vinegar

Boil the potatoes. Chop the bacon and fry in a little olive oil. Once crispy, add the garlic and parsley. Stir in the vinegar. Add the potatoes and serve.

Serve this as a side to a meat dish, or with some salad leaves on its own. This also works with a little crème fraiche stirred through to bind the dressing and the potatoes together. Top notch nosh.

In short, I really like this place. I know it may sound like I’ve been gushing a bit, but I can’t overstate how much better it is than a supermarket. Cheaper, too. If you live in Leamington you should go there. If you don’t, well, sorry. But find a local greengrocer. Greengrocer ennui is very rare.