Mushroom Ragout

This is a perfect dish to take advantage of the range of high quality cave grown mushrooms you can get in the Touraine Loire Valley, but wild mushrooms would also work well. Don't augment with dried mushrooms, but try to get three or four varieties of fresh meaty mushrooms.

Mushroom ragout served with polenta.

Ingredients
2 tbsp butter
Olive oil
600 - 800 g mixed mushrooms (button, blewits, oysters, shiitake, porcini, girolles)
250 g pearl onions, peeled
Salt and pepper
1 - 2 leeks, cleaned and cut into chunks
2 carrots, sliced
3 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 generous tbsp tomato paste
2 rounded tbsp flour
375 ml red wine
375 ml vegetable stock
1 tbsp soy sauce
3 sprigs of thyme or 1/2 tsp dried thyme
A bay leaf

Method

1. Chop or tear the mushrooms into pieces.
2. In a large pan heat the butter and some oil and brown the mushrooms and onions. Do this in two batches, and don't move the mushrooms around too much, just stir gently every couple of minutes. Add more oil for the second batch if necessary. Once browned remove and set aside.
3. Add a bit more oil to the empty pan and then soften the carrots and leeks in it.
4. Add half the garlic and stir in the tomato paste.
5. Add wine, stock, soy sauce and herbs, scraping to deglaze the pan.
6. Add the mushrooms and onions and simmer for 30 - 40 minutes, with the lid set with a small gap.
7. Taste and add extra salt if need be, and the rest of the garlic.
8. Serve with polenta, sprinkled with smoked paprika and chopped parsley.

Locally cultivated White Ferula Mushrooms Pleurotus eryngii var nebrodensis, 

a type of King Oyster mushroom.

Wild foraged Bay Bolete Xerocomus badius prepared for cooking (very similar to porcini).

Mushrooms being cultivated in a former underground quarry at Bourré.

Yum

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