Mushrooms

Yesterday afternoon, there were some mushrooms sitting in the refrigerator, still in reasonable shape but getting on for a week out of Sainsbury's. Probably 300g of white closed cup mushrooms, the ones that come in a shrink wrapped, brown cardboard container. No longer quite so closed cup as they had been. So it was time to use them up.

First thought, mushroom soup. That is to say mushrooms cooked in a little butter and water. Maybe a little black pepper. Second though, garnish for an onion and tomato based stew, probably involving saucisson. But third thought, why not just have the mushrooms in a white sauce, along with some pasta and greens? Which is what we settled on. With some help from the Radiation cook book.

Separated the stalks from the mushrooms, chopping them a little when large. Didn't need to peel the mushrooms. Chopped a couple of onions and a stump of saucisson, maybe 50g of it.

Start the onions in two thirds of a pint of semi-skimmed milk, made up to a pint with water. Add the mushrooms and simmer for a few minutes. Add the saucisson.

While this is going on, roux up 2oz of butter with 2oz of plain flour. Slowly stir in the liquid from the mushrooms etc. When the sauce is ready, add it back to the mushrooms etc. As snapped above.

While this is going on, cook some penne pasta and Brussels sprouts.

Serve. Pretty good. Maybe another time, slightly more mushrooms and a slightly thinner sauce. I might say in passing that the white sauce made with the mushroom water worked pretty well, with a delicate, pleasing flavour.

Wound up the proceeding with the last of the second crop of tinned peaches, as mentioned at reference 1. Must still be responding to the 'no added sugar' sugar fix from all the grape juice concentrate. Next crop ordered up for Wednesday.

A successful, new-to-us, near-veggie dish. Maybe 45 minutes total preparation time - but a fairly intense preparation. There seemed to be quite a lot going on. How long will it be before we give it another go?

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2023/12/exit-portal.html.