Baked mushroom risotto (dried ceps from late summer in Sweden)

I had a weirdo 24 hour illness - felt like a mild gastric flu? Anyway, I'd recovered enough by the following evening to be properly hungry again - I wanted real food, but something comforting in case my stomach was still a little sensitive. I consulted Delia, and this was exactly what I wanted.

We even had a handful of dried ceps lying around, left from Moss Woods Love, and the single beautiful perfect karl johans svamp (ceps) I found there, M dried, and we came home with part of. In fact, I thought we had all the ingredients... but it turned out we'd run out of onions of all the things, so I had to make a special trip to stock up. It was worth it! This precisely hit the spot.

In fact, so much so that I've made it twice in the last couple of weeks - once with dried ceps and a mix of fresh portobello and white mushrooms; and once with dried maitake and a mix of freshly picked (from a tree I found near our place) oyster mushrooms and fresh white mushrooms. I prefer the dark mushrooms to the oysters (I have some kind of prejudice against oysters I am trying to get over), but both were delicious.

10 g dried porcini mushrooms
225 g fresh dark-gilled mushrooms
60 g butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
risotto rice measured to the 175ml level in a measuring jug
150 ml dry Madeira (or white wine)
2 tbsp grated parmesan, plus approx. 50 g extra, shaved into flakes with a potato peeler
salt and pepper

Heat the oven to 150°C. Soak the dried mushrooms in 570 ml of boiling water for half an hour.

Meanwhile, chop the fresh mushrooms into 1 cm chunks. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, add the onion and cook over a gentle heat for about 5 min, then add the fresh mushrooms, stir well and leave on one side while you deal with the porcini.

When the dried mushrooms have soaked for half an hour, place a sieve over a bowl, line the sieve with a sheet of kitchen paper and strain the mushrooms, reserving the liquid. Squeeze any excess liquid out of them, then chop them finely and transfer to the pan with the other mushrooms and the onion.

Keep the heat low and let the onions and mushrooms sweat gently and release their juices – about 20 min. Meanwhile, put a large ovenproof dish in the oven to warm. Add the rice to the pan and stir it around to get a good coating of butter, then add the Madeira/wine, followed by the strained mushroom soaking liquid. Add 1 tsp salt and some pepper, stir and bring up to simmering point, then transfer the whole lot from the pan to the warmed dish. Stir once then place on the centre shelf of the oven without covering for exactly 20 min. After 20 min, stir in the grated parmesan. Put the dish back in the oven for 15 min, then remove from the oven and eat immediately, sprinkled with the shavings of parmesan.

Drying and rehydrating maitake

I got my hands on some Maitake back in October, thanks to D. S was out of town at the time, so I wanted to save some for him. I decided the solution was to dry some in the dehydrator. It dried quite quickly - probably a couple of hours at ~130F. I then transferred it to a resealable plastic bag and kept it in the cupboard. Yesterday I was making pizza and fancied some mushroom on it, remembered the maitake and that we hadn't tried rehydrating any of it yet, so brought it out. I just put it in a small bowl, poured enough boiling water over it to cover generously, and after about 10 min it was rehydrated and honestly almost the same as before dehydrating. When it was tender, I drained the mushroom (saving the liquid to use as mushroom stock in future recipes), then it was ready for whatever. If using the dried maitake for something wet (stew, risotto, whatever), you wouldn't even need to do the rehydration step: just throw it straight in. I put it on my pizza along with walnuts, olives, broccoli, capers, rich tomato sauce (with secret ingredient pomegranate molasses), a couple of fresh tomatoes, and some blue cheese on S's bits - always a bit of a random fridge clear-out when we make pizza. The pizza was a great success (good crust, from this recipe) and so was the mushroom!

I had tried drying chanterelles and hedgehog mushrooms previously, which also worked well, but had then powdered them as I'd read that they do not rehydrate well, so I had not tried the rehydration step before.

For preservation of chicken of the woods (from the wonderful, huge haul of it I found with D+A in the woods, post-swim, after our day at Drumlin) I have frozen some in a resealable bag, yet to see how it comes out.

Wild mushroom and lettuce 'risotto'

Chicken of the woods (above) has a tendency to be a little dry, especially when it has been sitting in the fridge for a week like the stuff I needed to use up last night. I also had some maitake that had dried out a bit. I'd been wanting to try some form of chicken of the woods risotto as I thought it might be a good way of counteracting the dryness. Both mushrooms have a substantial enough texture (and taste) to hold up to cooking in liquid without losing their shape or going slimy. The problem with real risotto is that it is not good as leftovers (unless it becomes arancini), so I decided to make a kind of pseudo risotto with a different kind of rice. Lettuce also needed eating. I enjoy cooked lettuce and thought its sweetness would go well with the earthy mushrooms and rice.

2 tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
~1/2 cup chopped chicken of the woods
~1/2 cup chopped maitake
1 cup rice mix (brown rice, black barley, daikon seeds - TJs)
2 cups hot veg stock
2 tbsp barley+chickpea aged miso
3/4 cup frozen sweetcorn
1 small lettuce, chopped
2-3 tbsp chopped parsley
soy sauce
salt+pepper
toasted sunflower seeds

Heat the oil in a medium, lidded saucepan. Add the garlic and cook for a minute or so til starting to soften. Add the chicken of the woods and maitake and cook for a few more minutes, cover and cook some more until lightly browned. If it started to dry out add a little of the stock. Add the rice mix and stir until the brown rice looks transparent. Add the stock, cover and cook for ~20 min, until all the liquid is absorbed. Add the miso halfway through and mix it through the liquid. Finally, add in the lettuce, parsley and sweetcorn and mix until the lettuce is wilted. Taste for seasoning and add black pepper and salt (and/or soy sauce) if needed. Sprinkle with toasted sunflower seeds to serve.


This is good. I like it.

Maitake, the Dancing Mushroom

In August, I dreamed about Black Trumpets and how much I wanted to try them. And, lo and behold, that very day C rang to see if we wanted to share in a fantastic haul of those very same shrooms. So lucky! Come October maitake (hen of the woods) was my dream. Lucky again: this time it is D whose generosity lets it be reality. Maitake is a beautiful mushroom, inside and out. I may have to revise my favourite mushroom rankings...

I was thinking of just sauteeing the mushroom with a little garlic, but I fancied eating it with bok choi... and miso... and egg... and the next thing I knew all those things (and a few more besides) were in one pan making party. Maitake is fairly substantial in volume, taste and texture, so I figured it should stand up to some light flavour addition - I wouldn't consider any of these additions to be too overpowering (in the quantities used).

1-2 tbsp veg oil
1 large clove garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1 piece ginger same size as the garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1/2 tsp red chilli flakes
~2 cupfuls cleaned maitake, torn into equal-sized pieces about 1 in x 3 in
1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 egg, beaten (optional)
1 bunch small bok choi, washed and cut into pieces similar sized to the maitake
1/2 cup frozen sweetcorn, defrosted
1 tbsp white miso
1 tsp maple syrup
1 tsp soy sauce
1-2 tbsp lime juice
1-2 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped (optional)

Heat the oil and add the garlic and ginger. Cook for a minute or two then add the chilli flakes. Stir, then add the maitake. Saute for 10-15 min, until it has released liquid and taken it up again, shrunk, and is lightly browned. Add the sesame seeds and cook for a minute or two til just starting to brown. Make space in the pan then add the beaten egg. Let it cook into a mini omelette in the middle then slice roughly with your spoon and mix in lightly. Add the bok choi and sweetcorn and cook until the bok choi just wilts. Mix the miso, maple syrup, soy sauce and lime juice in a small bowl, then add to the pan, turn off heat and mix to combine. Serve with a sprinkling of coriander. Good with noodles or rice or wheatberries (the last being what I had kicking around in the fridge).


For notes on drying and rehydrating maitake, see here.