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Recipe: Mushroom Ragu
- Yield: Serves 4–6 as a side dish 1x
Description
Foragers can find many varieties of delicious edible wild mushrooms on Martha’s Vineyard. The day we went to Ann’s for dinner, I harvested a crop of chanterelles (both cinnabar chanterelles and yellow chanterelles) that had popped up in my lawn. As there weren’t enough to feed four people, I supplemented them with dried morelles and some hen of the woods we’d found in the woods and dried last fall. Fresh wild mushrooms are often so flavorful that preparing them to their greatest advantage requires nothing more than a frying pan, some butter and olive oil, and a little salt and pepper. Here, no salt was necessary, because there’s salt in the porcini bouillon cube used for rehydrating the added dried mushrooms. A touch of cream mixed in toward the end creates a sauce that pulls together all the varieties of mushroom in this dish.
Ingredients
- 1 porcini mushroom boullion cube (see note)
- 1 1/2 – 2 cups boiling water
- 1 cup mixed dried mushrooms, such as morelles, porcinis, shitakes, and hen of the woods
- 2 cups fresh mushrooms
- 1 large shallot, minced
- 2 Tbsps butter
- 2 Tbsps olive oil
- 2 or more (to taste) Tbsps of chopped parsley
- 1 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
Instructions
- Dissolve the porcini bullion cube in the boiling water.
- Place the dried mushrooms in the bullion when the water is warm (not hot), and let sit for 20–30 minutes until the mushrooms are tender. Remove the rehydrated mushrooms with a slotted spoon, and reserve the broth.
- If the fresh mushrooms are large, roughly chop them. Leave smaller mushrooms whole.
- Melt the butter in a skillet over medium-high heat. Add the olive oil, then the shallots, and sauté until the shallots are translucent and slightly browned, about 5 minutes.
- Add the mushrooms, ground pepper, and half of the Parsley, and stir to mix. Cook until the mushrooms are tender, about 5 minutes.
- Add the cream and about a cup of the leftover bouillon. Bring to a low simmer, and cook for several minutes, until the liquid has reduced to a sauce of your desired thickness.
- Garnish with the remaining parsley, and serve.
Notes
Both Star and Knorr make porcini bouillon cubes, and both are available online.
