Ay Carumba.  Thanks once again to Jamie At Home and the Temple Bar Food Market, I enjoyed a delicious lunch this afternoon.  Had to share it with you.

I picked up these incredible mushrooms from Denis Healy’s Organic Farm stall this morning.  The ones on the left are shittake and the ones on the right are…some kind of alien life form’s body part style mushrooms.  Not sure what they are but damn, do they taste good.

I’m sure you could use normal mushrooms for this but the ones I got at the market were spectacular and took the dish to a whole other level of scrumptiousness.

This took all of 15 minutes to make and it was unbelievably good.  I thought I was going to faint mid-meal at the finger-licking tastiness of it all.

What you need for Jamie Oliver’s Ultimate Mushroom Bruschetta for 2

300g mixed interesting mushrooms, wiped clean

2 cloves of garlic, 1 peeled and finely chopped, the other halved

A few sprigs of fresh tjume, leaves picked

A few sprigs of fresh parsley, leaves picked

Optional sprig of summer savory (whatever that is), leaves picked

Salt and Pepper

1 dried red chilli, crumbled

a small knob of butte

1 lemon

2 slices of sourdough bread (I got a gorgeous loaf from one of the bread stalls at the market)

olive oil

I didn’t have a dried chilli so I just used an oldish one and finely sliced it.  Then proceeded to rub my eyes absentmindedly which was unpleasant.

I’m not sure if it was the type of mushrooms I used but there was not a lot of moisture in my end dish.  Perhaps my mushies didn’t have that usual juice that mushrooms release.  If I’d had some in the fridge, I definitely would have put in a wee drop of cream.  What I did in the end was I added a very small dollop of Philadelphia cream cheese (twas all I had in the fridge!).  It helped to provide a little sauce without taking over the dish.

First, put a large heavy frying pan on the heat and pour in a few glugs of olive oil.  I tore up some of my bigger mushrooms so that they were more or less all the same size.  Add all your mushrooms into the hot pan and toss them about so they are coated with the oil.

After a minute or so, add the chopped garlic and the fresh herbs and toss it all about again.  Then add a wee pinch of salt and pepper.  Finally, I add the chopped chilli and let it all fry away gently for a few minutes.

The mushrooms should soon take on a bit of colour after about 3 or 4 minutes.  At this point, you can add your little knob of butter and a squeeze of lemon juice.  Don’t go too crazy here, as you don’t want it to be too tangy.  Add the juice of half a lemon or so and taste it to see if it’s  right.

Jamie’s recipe says at this point to add two or three tablespoons of water into the pan to create a lovely creamy sauce.  For whatever reason, this didn’t go to plan for me and the water just evaporated and everything remained very dry.

At this point, I added my little spoonful of Philadelphia, which did produce a little bit of a sauce.  I was very conservative with the Philadelphia as I didn’t want to spoil the whole dish.  I probably could have gotten away with more.

Next time I make this (and oh yes, there will be a next time) I will probably add a glug of cream at the end so I do get that nice sauce.

I toasted my sourdough bread and then rubbed the bread with the other clove of garlic.

You just chop the garlic in half and give the bread a bit of a rub with the cut side of the clove.  Be careful not to do it too much as it can get too garlicky.  Just about three or four rubs up and down the bread should do it.

Get your bread on your plate and pile on the mushrooms, spooning your creamy sauce all over the plate, serve with a slice of lemon for squeezing and get stuck in!

YUM!

Categories: Breakfast, Dinner, Lunch Tags: Mushrooms