Tag: easy recipes

Spaghetti with a mushroom ragu for two

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This is a delightful little dish that’s simple and fairly quick to make. You can use fresh mushrooms, but I suggest using dried because they are cheaper, have much more flavor, and you can use the soaking liquor for the stock. If you do choose to use fresh mushrooms, then use vegetable stock. Chicken or chicken-style vegan stock will overpower the flavor of the mushrooms.

For the mushrooms, I used a mixture of shiitake, button, cep, and black fungus, but I don’t think the black fungus worked all that well (except for giving the dish a dramatic look!). I think dried mushrooms are excellent, but if you do use fresh, you’ll need about five times the weight. If you use nice mushrooms, that’ll be expensive, but you might be rich so you do you. Either way, don’t bother using just baby button mushrooms, and certainly don’t use oyster mushrooms because your sauce will taste of nothing.

It serves two people. Or one person twice.

Ingredients

  • 50 g dried mushrooms
  • Olive oil (about twice as much as you think you’ll need, but not so much that you’ll be deep frying)
  • 1 onion (or a couple of banana shallots would be nice)
  • 2 fat cloves of garlic, minced (or two big dollops out of a jar)
  • 60 ml or so of vermouth, or whatever you have – sherry, Madeira, Marsala etc.
  • 2 tbsp thickened cream (double cream in the UK, heavy cream in America)
  • Some basil, parsley, and parmesan cheese (as much as you like of each)
  • 250 g spaghetti (I use Barilla no. 7 spaghettoni)

Method

Begin by soaking the mushrooms in warm water for about half an hour (you’re going to ask me how much water to use: use enough to cover them in whatever vessel you’re soaking them in, and in any case at least 300 ml to 400 ml, but not too much, otherwise the lovely stock will be too weak.) While they are soaking, chop the onion and have a glass of wine. Add the chopped onion and garlic along with a good pinch of salt to the oil in a large frying pan, but don’t put it on the heat yet.

Once the mushrooms are rehydrated, drain and chop them, reserving 250 ml of the soaking liquor.

Now put the frying pan on a medium-ish heat and soften the onion, not until it’s brown, but until it’s really soft; it’ll take five to ten minutes, depending on the heat, but don’t be tempted to turn the heat up to rush it.

Next, add the mushrooms to the pan, and grind in some black pepper. If it’s a special occasion, you could grate in some nutmeg too – mushrooms love nutmeg. Cook the mushrooms over a fairly high heat until they are tender and any liquid that went in with them has evaporated.

Now pour in the vermouth (or whatever you are using) and allow that to evaporate too (it’s flavor we’re after here; we’re not making soup). Then pour in the reserved soaking liquor (or if you used fresh mushrooms, add 250 ml vegetable stock or something with an inoffensive amount of flavor). Turn the heat down to low, and simmer for about half an hour – until the liquid has reduced by about half and it’s thickened up.

While all that’s going on, bring a large pot of water to the boil and add a frightening amount of salt (like, I grab a handful of rock salt and throw it in), add the pasta and cook it for one minute less than it tells you on the packet, unless you’ve got dentures you’re worried about, then add some extra time so it all goes soft. Time it all so that the pasta will not be sitting around waiting for the sauce.

After the sauce has been cooking for half an hour and has reduced sufficiently, add the herbs and the cream (you can use more or less cream, depending on your taste, but don’t drown out the taste of the mushrooms, and remember you’re not making soup!). Bring it back up to a simmer (it shouldn’t curdle, unless you’ve used reduced fat cream for some reason, though I can’t imagine why you would). Then immediately drain the pasta and add it to the pan, mix it all together thoroughly, then serve onto warmed plates. Sprinkle over some grated parmesan cheese (or shaved if you’re trying to impress).

Enjoy!

 

Kedgeree with smoked herrings

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Kedgeree is great. It’s a breakfast dish but you can have it any time. It’s quick and easy and a very good recipe for one, but it is also good when you have an overnight guest who you want to impress with breakfast, and because my version mostly uses tinned ingredients, it’s an ideal camping dish.

This recipe serves one.

Ingredients

  • 200 g can of smoked herrings (in brine, please; not tomato sauce)
  • 60 ml basmati rice (or any long-grain rice, but I insist on basmati)
  • half an onion, diced (I use already diced frozen onions)
  • half a small can of mushrooms (I like the ones in butter sauce)
  • One hard boiled egg, roughly chopped
  • A big pinch of curry powder (I use Clive of India Hot curry powder – this is an outrageous colonial dish after all!)
  • About half a teaspoon of turmeric, for color
  • Salt and pepper
  • Butter

Method

In a small-ish frying pan over a medium heat, fry the onion in butter until it is soft and slightly brown, then turn the heat up to high. Stir in the curry powder and the turmeric until it’s combined with the butter and coated the onions, then add the rice to the pan. You want to toast the rice for about a minute, and keep it moving so that the rice picks up the color and flavor of the curry powder.

Once everything is a lovely orange color and nicely fragrant, pour in 180 ml water and bring to the boil. Once it’s boiling, cover the pan (if you haven’t got a lid that fits, just use foil), turn the heat right down and let it barely simmer for about fifteen minutes, or until the water has been absorbed and the rice is cooked.

In the meantime, pour yourself a glass of wine (if you are making this for lunch or dinner) or champagne (if you are making this for breakfast) and take some photos of the cooking process for your Instagram.

Once the rice is cooked, fluff it up a bit with a wooden fork (I had trouble finding a wooden fork in Sydney when I first moved here, and was even told by a shop assistant in a cookware shop that they did not exist and I had conjured up the concept of a wooden fork in my head, but it turns out that someone at Ikea also conjured up the concept of a wooden fork in their head, so you can get one there). Use the wooden fork to break up the herring fillets (which you have drained, of course!) a bit, but not too much because you want chunks rather than flakes, and stir the into the rice, along with the chopped egg and the mushrooms. Do it gently otherwise you’ll break up the fish and egg too much and you’ll end up with mush. Just turn it over with the fork until everything is combined and heated through. Season with salt and pepper. I’m an absolute fiend for salt, but you probably won’t need that much because of the herrings.

If you’re doing this for Instagram, and are particularly interested in likes and comments, then this looks nice sprinkled with some cayenne pepper (I don’t do this because I don’t like the flavor) and some parsley arranged on the top (you could use coriander, of course, which might be a better flavor combination, but wouldn’t be in the spirit of colonial cuisine).

Then, of course, you eat it.

Notes

If you want a vegetarian version, leave out the fish and double the mushrooms, and you could maybe use some lentils or some smoked firm tofu or tempeh or something that will have a bit of a bite and a smoky or smoke-adjacent flavor. If you want a vegan version do that and leave out the egg (and use some kind of vegetable oil or other instead of the butter).

If you’re making this for more than one person (which you probably are if, as suggested, you’re making this for breakfast to impress last night’s shag your overnight guest), then increase the quantities of everything accordingly (use a 1:3 ratio of rice to water), and serve it on a platter, rather than individually, so people can help themselves.

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