Breakfast of Champignons

 

Mushroom ragout served with polenta.

Mushroom Ragout Recipe [link]: 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.

Frying cave grown mushrooms with lardons and onions.

Creamy Oyster Mushrooms.

Creamy Oyster Mushrooms Recipe [link]: White Ferula Mushrooms are a type of premium oyster mushroom much prized as a culinary ingredient. They were offered to me at a very reasonable €10/kg by the producer and I jumped at the chance.

Stuffed mushrooms.

Stuffed Mushrooms Recipe [link]: We are really lucky here to have access to cave grown mushrooms. Because they grow slowly they are completely unlike supermarket mushrooms in texture. Cave grown mushrooms are meaty and flavourful, like a wild mushroom. They cost a bit more, but it's worth it, as they don't reduce much in quantity when cooked. Best of all, they are clean, with no leaf litter to wipe off and no maggots (unlike wild mushrooms).

Cave grown Wood Blewits, fried with onions.

Recipe for Stroganoff with Wood Blewits: Brush the Wood Blewits off, cut them into quarters and fry them with onions. Then sear some strips of beef that have been dredged in flour, add the mushrooms and onions, some beef stock, a dollop of tomato paste, a dash of Worcestershire sauce, a generous pinch of thyme and lots of paprika. Once the flavours had developed and everything is cooked, add a little pot of plain yoghurt to make stroganoff. Serve with buttered noodles.

Yum

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