Spaghetti Bolognaise with Mushroom and Kale

I think I have an addiction to kale. This is one of my go to recipes, I love, the kids smash it, its mostly veg. Win - win. One of the most beautiful things about this dish is, you can make it on the go. Once the onion and celery are minced and have begun sauteing, you can bgein chopping the next bit. If you have never used pork and veal mince for spag bol, you should. Two tips, 1) generally it is how you finish a dish that makes it rule - some great parmesan and great extra virgin can lift any dish from good to wow; 2) learn to love chilli - it is the business.

1 onion in small dice
1 stick celery in small dice
2 tsp minced rosemary
2 tsp minced thyme
1 handful minced parsley
1 handful basil leaves
3 cloves garlic minced
2 rashers bacon in small dice
2 handfuls mushroom minced
A few porcini mushrooms ripped (optional)
500 gms pork and veal mince
3 leaves kale, finely chopped
1 bottle of passata
1 packet of pasta
1 or 2 tbs sugar
1 tbs balsamic vinegar
Salt and pepper
Extra virgin olive oil
Parmesan cheese
Chilli - fresh or dried

Get your pasta water hot. Sauté the onion and celery over a medium high temperature in some extra virgin with the 1/2 of the garlic, rosemary and thyme. When soft throw in the bacon and fry for a few minutes. When fragrant add in the mushrooms - you may need more extra virgin. When the mushrooms are cooked add in the minced pork and veal. Cook the concoction until the moisture has mostly evaporated then mix through the kale, salt and pepper. When fragrant and beginning to soften, stir through 3/4 of the tomato passata. Add in the sugar, balsamic and remaining garlic and 1/2 of the parsley. Start cooking the pasta in salted water. Reduce the heat and simmer the sauce until the pasta cooks. If your sauce is too dry add some of the pasta cooking water into the sauce. Chop the basil and stir through, check for seasoning, adding more salt/pepper/sugar/balsamic as necessary. Combine the sauce and pasta. Spoon into bowls. Top with a sprinkling of parsley, salt, a grind of pepper, parmesan and chilli. Some crispy prosciutto is wicked too.

Chicken Mushroom and Kale Pasta with Lemon Herbed Bread Crumbs

This is the first time I have used fried bread crumbs with a pasta and it made feel silly I'd never done it before. So much flavour and crunch for so little effort. Quick and easy and another excuse for me to bung some kale into something else - I love that stuff.

500 gms chicken thighs fillets
2 handfuls mushroom roughly chopped
3 big kale leaves chopped
2 cloves garlic chopped
2 cloves garlic finely minced
2 rashers of bacon in dice
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil (may need more)
1/2 cup white wine or bubbles
1/2 cup chicken stock
Juice of half a lemon
Rind of half a lemon
2 thick slices of nice bread (I used sour dough)
1 tbs of basil leaves minced
1 handful of minced parsley
1 knob of butter
Parmessan cheese
Chilli flakes
1 packet of spaghetti
Salt and pepper

Blitz the bread, mix with the minced basil, lemon rind and minced garlic. Pour in a little extra virgin olive oil and combine well. Roast spread out on a tray at 180C for about 10 minutes, keep your eye on it. Remove from the heat when done.
Have your pasta water boiling and ready.
Season the chicken with salt and fry in most of the extra virgin olive oil over a medium high heat, remove to a clean plate when you have great colour. Fry the bacon until you have great colour then add in the chopped garlic, throw in the mushroom and some salt and pepper, get some nice colour.
Cook the pasta.
Add the kale to the mushroom/bacon mixture and toss through the flavoured concoction. Chop the chicken then add back to the pan along with any juices. Deglaze the pan with the wine and reduce for a minute or two. Pour in the stock, lemon juice, half a cup of the pasta water and half of the parsley and continue reducing. Add in the knob of butter and toss/shake about to emulsify the sauce. Drain the pasta and combine with the sauce.
Spoon into bowls, top with parsley, a little salt and pepper, a good helping of bread crumbs and chilli flakes and a little extra virgin olive oil.

Flaked Salmon Pasta with a Mushroom and Asparagus Sauce

Wow, two recipes in a month, things are getting hectic. This was delicious, I made my own pasta here but store bought would be fine, if possible buy some freshly made pasta from a deli if you have the opportunity perhaps. The salmon was just as simple as shallow frying and really all the sauce was was some sautéed mushroom, asparagus pieces, pasta water and cream. One of the things I did do here actually (I cooked this a few days ago...) was make some basil chips. Basil what? Heaps simple, get half a bunch of basil and pick the leaves, lightly salt and toss in a little oil. Roast for 5-10 minutes, just don't let them burn. Very interesting flavour - initial beautiful basil hit then an after taste of green tea. I plan on doing more with this concept, very interesting.

3 salmon fillets, skin on
Two big handfuls and mushrooms sliced
1 bunch asparagus cut into bite sized pieces
2 tbs cream (or more if you're keen)
2 tbs butter
2 cloves garlic chopped
Extra virgin olive oil
Enough fresh pasta for 4
Handful of sage leaves
Parsley for garnish
Basil chips
Cherry tomatoes quartered
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Salt and pepper

Have all of your ingredients ready to go as was you start it all happens quite quickly. Have your water simmering and ready to cook the pasta. Season the fillets with salt and pepper. Heat some extra virgin olive oil over a medium high heat, fry the sage leaves in the oil until crisp - remove and reserve. Place the salmon fillets in skin side down and cook until the fillet is cook about 1/3 to 1/2 the way up the side - do not allow the skin to burn, this becomes part of the garnish. Turn when ready and when the fillet feels about medium rare to medium, remove to a clean plate. Cook your pasta.
Add the butter to the pan and when melted add in the mushrooms and some salt and pepper giving them some great colour. When mostly cooked add in the asparagus pieces and cook for a further minute. Squeeze in the lemon juice and give it a mix. Pour in the cream and a few tablespoons of the pasta water. Give the pan a good shake to emulsify the sauce, when combined turn off the heat. If the pasta is cooked, drain and toss through a little extra virgin olive oil.
Carefully remove the skin from each fillet and slice on the diagonal. Flake the flesh. Add a portion of pasta to each serving bowl, spoon over some sauce, some flaked salmon, garnish with some basil chips, fried sage leaves, parsley, cherry tomatoes, some freshly cracked pepper and a little drizzle of extra virgin.

Crumbed Stuffed Mushrooms

Some people I know made this a few years ago at a New Years Eve bun fight which was later topped off by eating 700gms of meat-sweat-inducing rib on the bone steaks. I have tweaked it a little but it is still pretty close the original. Tastes good.

Mushrooms
200 gms cream cheese
1 rasher of bacon
Some rosemary
1 clove garlic
Extra virgin olive oil
Porcini salt
Pepper
Bread crumbs
2 eggs beaten
Flour
Some milk
Light olive oil

Chop up the bacon and garlic and fry with rosemary and extra virgin olive oil. Remove and mince the stems from the mushrooms with the bacon etc with a knife. Stir the mushroom/bacon mix through the cream cheese with some porcini salt and cracked pepper until well combined. Spoon the mixture into the mushroom caps. In batches dip the mushrooms in the milk then flour then egg and finally the bread crumb so that they are well covered. Heat some light olive oil to medium high. Fry the mushrooms in batches on both side until they have great colour.
(If you have some lemon, squeeze some over the finished product once cooked - I didn't but it would taste nice)

Garlic Cannellini Beans with Mushroom and Chilli

Awesome - 5 minutes. Maybe add some herb. I had this with a dirty filthy massive t-bone. Would be brilliant on little toasts or for breakfast.

1 tin cannellini beans, drained and rinsed
6 mushrooms sliced
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
Porcini salt
Pepper
Splash of red wine vinegar
1/2 a fresh chilli sliced


Heat the oil to medium high and when hot toast the garlic. As soon as the garlic starts to take on some colour, add in the mushrooms and fry until they have great colour. Pour in the beans and toss about in the flavoured oil. Season with some porcini salt and some pepper and a little splash of red wine vinegar. Spoon into a serving bowl and top with sliced chilli.

Boned Leg of Lamb Stuffed with Ricotta and Corn, Almonds and Mushroom

Mothers Day din dins. For maximum effect make a trivet of veg for the lamb and half fill with water to sit on and blitz at the end to make your gravy

1 leg of lamb boned
3 tbs Barbecued Corn and Ricotta Dip
1 handful almonds
2 handfuls chopped mushroom
5 cloves garlic
1/2 tbs thyme
1 handful sage
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
Water
Root veg

Blitz the almonds, 2 cloves garlic, mushroom and thyme, some salt and pepper and enough extra virgin to make it moist. Paint the Barbecued Corn and Ricotta Dip on in the inside of the meat then evenly spread out the almond/mushroom mixture. Carefully and firmly tie the lamb back up, shoving as much stuffing back inside as you can. Oil, salt and pepper and sage the lamb and rub well. Place on a trivet of veg and remaining garlic, pouring in enough water to come up to the bottom of the lamb and cover with foil. Cooking a preheated 220C oven for 20 minutes then reduce the temperature to 180C and cook for 20 mins per 450 gms. Remove the foil 20 minutes from the end. Once finished, remove, cover, rest, make gravy, stuff yourself.

Mushroom and Bacon Soup with Poached Egg

Hmmmmmm, breakfast in soup format. Except I ate it for dinner... I have been meaning to poach an egg in soup for a while to see if it would work. It kind of does - if you use a microwave after adding it to a bowl. Is it necessary? No but it does taste very good. When I next decide to poach an egg in some soup I will do it separately as the soup was too hot. I used 3 rashers of bacon here but as I used so much mushroom, it was a little hidden. If you try this, use 5 or 6 instead. Seriously worth trying.

1 big bag of mushrooms chopped
1 handful porcini mushrooms (optional)
1 1/2 onions diced
2 cloves garlic chopped
3 rashers bacon chopped
1/2 sprig rosemary stripped
1 L chicken stock
1 L water
1 cup white wine
2 tbs extra virgin olive oil
1 big knob of butter
Salt and pepper
Croutons
Chives
Natural yoghurt
Porcini oil (optional)
1 poached egg per person

Heat the butter over a medium high heat until bubbling, add in the extra virgin. Cook the onion until soft. Throw in the nearly all of the bacon and rosemary and fry until it has some nice colour. Add in the garlic until fragrant then throw in all of the mushroom and porcini mushrooms along with some salt and pepper. Cook down until almost all of the liquid has evaporated (about 15 minutes) keeping an eye on it and stirring occasionally. Deglaze with the white wine and cook until it has all absorbed. Pour in the stock and as much water as you require, bring to the boil then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Check for seasoning, blitz with a stick blender and turn off the heat.
Heat some more oil, fry the remaining bacon and remove. In the same pan toast your croutons with some more rosemary.
Poach the eggs.
Spoon into bowls, add a dollop of yoghurt, a poached egg, top with some croutons and bacon, sprinkle with chives and drizzle with porcini oil.

Chestnut and Shitake Mushroom Steamed Wontons

My wife was recently given a Spirit House cookbook for her birthday. I have heard many good things about this place and judging by the quality of the cook book, it is clearly worthy of the hype. I asked my wife to choose a starter and she chose this. Not having all of the ingredients I altered it sufficiently to consider place it here. They were slightly fiddly but really worth it.

500 gms pork mince
10 water chestnuts chopped
1 tbs fish sauce
2 tsp soy sauce
1 tbs chopped coriander
1 tbs chopped basil
1 handful dried shitake mushrooms reconstituted and chopped
1 egg
1 packet wontons

Combine all of the ingredients except for the wontons. Spoon about 1 tsp of pork mixture into the middle of each wonton, wet the edges and seal. Half I sealed in a rectangle, half I sealed on a diagonal and folded like tortellini. Steam for 8-10 minutes. You can separate layers with grease proof paper cut into rounds and holes cut into it. I served this with kecap manis and sriracha - a Thai hot chilli sauce - it is amazing.

Stuffed Mushroom Topped with Scallop and Chorizo

Just a few scallops really go a long way, likewise 1 chorizo sausage can span at least 3 meals. This took about 10 minutes to prepare and about 35 minutes to cook. This was enough as a starter for 2 kids and 3 adults.

2 field mushrooms
1/2 handful parsley
2 cloves garlic
4 tbs Panko bread crumbs
Salt and pepper
1 tbs marinated feta
1 tbs grated Parmesan
1 tbs extra virgin (maybe more)
A little white wine
1 tbs pine nuts
6 fresh sea scallops
10 thin slices of chorizo
Some grated tasty cheese

Pre heat an oven to 180C. Break the stems off the field mushrooms and roughly chop. Roughly chop the parsley and garlic. Mince the mushroom stems, parsley and garlic together until fine and well combined. Mix the Parmesan, parsley mix, marinated feta and half of the olive oil with a spoon. If the mixture is a little dry, add the rest of the oil. Drip a little white wine over each mushroom, divide the bread crumb mix between each, place on a baking paper lined tray, cover with foil and place in the oven for 15 minutes. Remove the foil and continue to roast for another 10 minutes or until the top is crunchy.
Thinly slice the scallops. Remove mushrooms from the oven.
Arrange the scallops and chorizo on top of each mushroom,top with a few pine nuts, sprinkle over a little grated tasty cheese and return to the oven until the cheese has melted and the scallops are just opaque.

Prawn, Sweet Potato and Mushroom Pizza

So good.
If you like this recipe, try these.

300gm green prawns shelled

4 cloves garlic minced
1/2 bunch parsley minced
1/4 of a sweet potato
300 gms mushroom minced
Basil leaves
1 onion finely sliced
Mozzerella
4 pizza bases
1 tbs extra virgin olive oil
Juice of half a lemon
Salt and pepper
Tomato passatta

Preheat an oven to 220C. Chop the green prawns into thumb nail size pieces and combine with the extra virgin, salt and pepper, half of the garlic and the lemon juice. Hack at the sweet potato with a vegetable peeler making a pile of very thin slices. Spread 1 or 2 tbs of passatta over each base, sprinkle over the garlic, tear on the basil leaves, divide out mushrooms and a light sprinkling of mozarella. Top with the sweet potato slices and prawn followed by as much cheese as you like. Bake for 10 or 15 minutes.
I like to serve mine with chilli slices and dressed rocket on top.

Mushroom, Asparagus, Parsnip and Salsa Verde Soup

Hello again soup season. Soup is the business, get some tasty stuff, simmer it, blend it, maybe add some cream,  serve, top with some tasty stuff and awesome bread - all with very little effort. It doesn't get much better.

1 large parsnip in chunks

500gms mushrooms chopped

1 onion diced

3 cloves garlic minced

2 rashers bacon diced

2 large potatoes in chunks

1 bunch asparagus

1 tbs+ salsa verde

Good splash of white wine

1 L chicken stock

1/2 cup cream

Sour cream

Salt and pepper

Extra virgin olive oil

Toasted crusty bread

Remove the woody end of the asparagus and reserve along with the tips, slice the stems finely. Set aside 2 tbs diced bacon. Saute the onion, garlic and bacon in some extra virgin. When the onion is soft and the mixture is fragrant, add in the mushrooms and cook until they have nice colour. Add in the salsa verde and mix through, cooking for a couple of minutes. Check for seasoning and salt and pepper to taste. Delgaze with white wine. Add the woody asparagus ends, potato, parsnip and enough chicken stock to cover. Bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until vegetables are tender. Remove the woody asparagus ends. Add in the sliced asparagus and turn off the heat. After five minutes, pour in the cream, blend with a stick blender, adding more stock to reach your desired consistency as necessary. Check for seasoning.

Fry the reserved bacon in a little extra virgin, when almost crispy add in the asparagus tips and cook for a further minute or two, remove and drain on absorbent paper.

Spoon the soup into bowls, add in a tsp of sour cream per bowl, a tsp of salsa verde and top with some bacon/asparagus mixture and a grind of black pepper.

Salmon and Persian Feta Pasta with Mushroom

My favourite kind of pasta, cheap and easy. I have enjoyed flavouring stocks with prawn heads or bones or herbs for years and realised I could do the same here with the salmon skin for the pasta water. As it turns out it was effective and a very simple means of injecting flavour with zero effort. I will definitely use this idea again in future.

1/2 portion of hot smoked salmon (reserve skin)

4 or 5 mushrooms sliced

3 cloves garlic sliced and roughly chopped

 3 tbs marinated Persian feta
3 tbs extra virgin olive oil
Juice of 1/2 a lemon
Parsley roughly chopped
1/2 a Spanish onion, thinly sliced
1 packet of pasta
Salt and pepper


Place the skin from salmon into a large pot of salted water and bring to the boil. Cook the pasta until al dente. Heat the oil to medium high in a large frying pan and add the mushrooms, toss until they have nice colour. Add in the garlic and fry with the mushrooms until fragrant. Add in 3 tbs of the pasta water, the feta and lemon juice, bring to the boil and simmer for a minute or two to melt the incorporate the cheese, stir lots. Reduce the heat to very low while the pasta cooks. Shred the salmon with 2 forks. Drain the pasta and add to the mushroom feta mixture along with 3/4 of the salmon and 3/4 of the parsley. Mix through the pasta, check for seasoning and then spoon into bowls. Add some shredded salmon to the top along with some parsley. Top with sliced chilli if desired or some Parmesan. Nice.

Lamb Cutlets with Plum, Red Wine and Mushroom Sauce

Delicious and simple - cook some meat, fry some shroom, deglaze and melt some plum paste.

3 lamb cutlets per person
Stripped rosemary
Salt and pepper

1 tbs garlic oil
3 large mushrooms sliced
2 tbs dried porcini mushrooms
1 cup red wine
2 tbs plum paste
Olive oil
Patatas bravas
Grilled prosciutto

Cover the porcini with boiling water and allow to rehydrate. Season the lamb with rosemary, salt and cracked pepper and garlic oil. Heat some olive oil in a large frying pan to medium high. Cook the lamb on each side to your liking (I like mine rare to medium rare) and remove to a clean plate and cover. Add the mushrooms to the pan with porcini and saute until they have nice colour. Deglaze with the wine, pour in the porcini water, add the plum paste and reduce until slightly thickened.
Spoon some sauce to a plate, top with cutlets. Serve with patatas bravas, grilled prosciutto and some rocket.

Chicken Carbonara with Feta, Mushroom and Silverbeet

Having not made a carbonara before (have eaten plenty) I was quite please with this effort. The use of lemon rind kept it nice and light-ish and feta gave this more depth. The silverbeet may not be a traditional ingredient but it does taste good.

4 chicken thigh fillets

1 handful fresh thyme

2 rashers bacon chopped

2 cloves garlic sliced

5 mushrooms roughly chopped

1 tbs porcini chopped (optional)

1 splash of white wine

5 silverbeet deveined and thinly sliced

100 ml cream

2 tbs marinated feta

2 eggs

1 decent handful of grated Parmesan

Rind of half a lemon

Juice of half a lemon

Salt and pepper

1 packet of pasta

Olive oil

Parsley and chilli to serve

Oil, salt and pepper and rub the thyme into the chicken thighs. Saute the bacon with a little olive oil over a medium high heat until it has nice colour. Add in the garlic and stir, simmering until it is fragrant. Add a little more oil, stir to flavour with the garlic and bacon then toss in the mushrooms (both kinds) and saute until just cooked. Remove to a clean bowl, deglaze the pan with the wine, quickly scrapping up any bits and pour back over the mushroom mixture. Add a little oil to the pan and cook the chicken until almost cooked, remove to a clean bowl and cover (it will continue to cook in the covered bowl).

Combine the cream, feta, eggs, Parmesan, lemon rind and some pepper with a whisk and set aside.

Cook the pasta in salted water, reserve 1 cup of the water. Drain the pasta and return to the pan, stir through the silverbeet. Chop the chicken into chunks and add to the pasta pan with the mushrooms and the chicken juice. Stir through the feta and egg mixture along with the reserved pasta water and the lemon juice. Allow to sit for a minute or so. Check for seasoning then into bowls, top with chopped parsley and sliced chilli or perhaps some lemon extra juice.

Sopressa, Bacon, Mushroom, Blue Cheese and Baby Spinach Salad

This was good and dead simple. I boiled some eggs till runny and sauteed some sopressa, bacon and mushrooms, tossed through some blue cheese, white wine and cream. That was it. Sopressa is an Italian smallgood but any decent salami would work. If you don't like blue cheese, use a little brie instead. After I plated this up I added some cracked pepper and chilli flakes which were great. I think also a small squeeze of lemon would cut through the richness. It is rich.

1 packet sopressa (200gms) torn
2 slices bacon diced
2 cloves garlic minced
5 mushrooms in medium dice
3 tbs olive oil
3 or 4 slices of blue cheese
2 tbs cream
Splash white wine
1 packet baby spinach
4 boiled eggs (more if you want)
Cracked pepper
Chilli flakes

Only boil the eggs till runny (place in when boiling, return to the boil for 4 minutes, slightly longer for XL) then place in an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Saute the bacon in the olive oil until it has colour, add in 2/3 of the sopressa and all of the garlic and cook for a further 2 or so minutes until quite fragrant. Add in the mushroom and cook until soft and with colour. Add in the blue cheese slices tossing to melt, pour in the white wine and toss, toss through the cream. Remove from the heat. Carefully peel the eggs which allows time for the mushroom mixture to cool slightly. Mix the mushroom mixture through the baby spinach (I used my hands) and divide amongst plates. Top the spinach with some of the uncooked sopressa, an egg or two, some cracked pepper and chilli flakes.

Roast Venison with Red Wine, Beetroot and Mushroom Sauce

New winner of tastiest thing I have ever cooked. This recipe is a culmination of ideas from 2 friends and some of my own. The thing that made this so tasty was the beetroot. It was cooked under the venison with some garlic then pureed and added to the sauce. I have sort of used this idea in past to flavour gravies but never to create the central flavour. I don't see why this couldn't be done with different types of meat. One of the other benefits to this recipe was that there was very little preparation. This was served with steamed beans and roasted parsnip and potato. As with most of my left over sauces, this one ended up in pasta with chunks of the left over meat with some parsley and parmesan.

A lamb rump and bacon version - still great.

1 piece of venison for roasting (mine was 1.5 kg)
1 large beetroot in 1cm slices
1 head of garlic, cloves separated
7 slices prosciutto (more if necessary)
Sage leaves (guessing about twenty)
Pepper
Salt
500 gms mushrooms diced
Extra virgin olive oil
1 cup red wine
1/2 cup chicken stock
3 tbs cream
Roasted potato and parsnip
Steamed beans/greens

Preheat an oven to 220C. Calculate the cooking time for the venison at 20 mins per 450gms + 20 mins extra cooking time. Roast for the first 20 minutes at 220C then reduce the heat to 180C. Lay the beetroot slices in your cooking dish (cast iron frying pan, non stick frying pan, roasting pan), I used a 30cm non stick frying pan. Place the whole garlic cloves on top of the beetroot, sprinkle the lot with a little olive oil. Crack some pepper over the venison and place as many sage leaves as you feel necessary on the venison. Lay strips of prosciutto over and under the venison, no need to be too pedantic, its going to warp in the oven. Cook in the oven as per above. Remove the venison from the oven to a clean plate, cover with foil and a tea towel to keep warm.
Remove the beetroot and garlic (removing the garlic skin) from the pan,  process in a blender or similar. Add the extra virgin olive oil to the pan, heat to medium high and cook the mushroom with a little salt. When they have some colour, add the red wine and reduce until the booze smell is gone. Add the beetroot goo, the cream and the chicken stock and simmer over a medium heat or until you have reached the required consistency. Add the juice from the resting venison to the sauce. Slice the venison, arrange on a plate with steamed greens and roasted potato and parsnip. Add sauce and enjoy.

Pan Fried Field Mushroom

A little white wine would work very well with this also.

Butter
Olive oil
Field mushrooms
Garlic sliced
Sage leaves (or other)
Porcini salt
Cracked pepper
1/3 cup chicken stock

Heat a non-stick pan to medium, melt the butter and when it starts foaming, add some olive oil to stop it from burning. Add the sage leaves and garlic and fry until aromatic. Remove the stem from the field mushroom and place gill side down into the flavoured oil. Fry for five minutes then turn over placing the cooked garlic and sage leaves on top with some porcini salt and cracked pepper. Allow to fry for a couple of minutes then add the chicken stock, placing a lid on top. Reduce the heat to medium-low cooking for another 4-5 minutes or until the stock has reduced. Remove to a plate whole or slice and display as necessary.

Whole Mushroom and Cognac Sauce

I served this with steak on the weekend, it was low maintenance and tasty. The simple ingredient that really makes the difference here is the resting juice from the steak which I had cooked after starting the mushrooms off. You can use that idea for any warm/cooked sauce that you make, much like in gravy. Its not a punch in the face but it gives sauces more depth. Of course the most prominent flavour here though will be the cognac but you could just as easily use brandy or port, even scotch whiskey if you wanted to. This is enough for 6 steaks.

1 tbs garlic oil (more if necessary)
1 shallot thinly sliced
1 bag of small button mushrooms
3 tbs cognac
1/2 cup stock (use what you have on hand)
3 tbs mascarpone (substitute with any form of cream)
The resting juices from steak

Add the garlic oil and shallots to a pan over a medium heat. When aromatic add the mushrooms whole and toss through the flavoured oil. Continue to move about occasionally until coloured all over and a bit soft, about ten minutes. Add the cognac to the pan (be careful it may flare), stirring to remove any caramelised bits from the bottom. When almost completely reduced (about 1 minute) add the stock and allow to reduce. Cook steak, rest steak somewhere warm. Once reduced add the mascarpone and turn down heat to medium low. When reduced add the resting juice from the steak, increase the heat and reduce further. Check for seasoning and spoon over your steak.

Mushroom and Silverbeet Risotto

This did require some preparation but it was very tasty. If you don't have silverbeet use spinach. When I made this I used the leftover stock from the Garlic Thyme Pot Roasted Chicken recipe which was about 400ml and topped it up with store bought stock. I also used the fat from the top of the stock instead of the olive oil and butter to toast the rice.

2 cups risotto rice
4 cups chicken stock (more may be necessary)
8 silverbeet leaves deveined and roughly chopped
2 tbs yoghurt (natural or Greek)
1/2 an onion finely diced
2 cloves of garlic minced
1 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 sprig rosemary stripped
2 tbs pesto
5 chicken thigh fillets
1 lemon
2 tbs butter
2 tbs olive oil
300 gms diced mushroom
1 1/2 cups white wine

Combine chicken and pesto and allow to marinade in the fridge for a while.
Steam or boil the silverbeet until just cooked, drain, squeeze out any moisture, allow to cool then blend with the yoghurt in a food processor then set aside in the fridge.
Heat 1 tbs butter in a large heavy based frying pan, when it foams add 1 tbs olive oil. Add the stripped rosemary and half of the garlic, cooking until fragrant then add mushrooms, toss to coat and saute until mostly cooked. Add 1/2 cup white wine and reduce, remove and set aside.
Cook the chicken in a frying pan in a little oil over a medium heat (so the pesto doesn't burn) until just cooked and set aside.
Heat the stock in a medium sized frying pan. Using a large, heavy based frying pan with high sides, saute the onion and remaining garlic over a medium high heat. When translucent add risotto rice and toss to coat, toasting for about 1 to 2 minutes. Add the wine and allow to almost completely absorb. Reduce the heat to medium. From this point add 1 ladle of stock at a time when each previous one is almost absorbed. When the stock is almost all gone, try a few rice grains, if they are still quite uncooked add more stock to your saucepan and continue until cooked. This should take about 18 - 20 minutes.
When the stock has been absorbed and the rice is just cooked, remove from the heat, stir in the silverbeet,  any juice from the chicken, mushrooms and Parmesan cheese. Check for seasoning then spoon into serving bowls.
Top with sliced chicken and a squeeze of lemon.

Baked Mushrooms

There is a common theme here, I love mushrooms. This is about as complicated as I get with baked shroom. Usually I merely put sliced garlic, parsley, a sprinkling of wine, lemon rind and butter and occasionally Parmesan. This however was wicked.

1 tbs each of chopped fresh basil and oregano

2 tbs bread crumbs (I used Japanese)

1 tbs roasted tomato oil

1 tbs roasted tomatoes
2 cloves garlic chopped

Porcini salt

Lemon rind
Wine (I used Riesling)
4 large flat mushrooms

Grease an oven tray and pre-heat the oven to 200C. Pour a little wine over the top of each mushroom. Mince the remaining ingredients with a knife, add pepper and divide evenly across the top of each mushroom. Bake for 20 minutes or until the shrooms have collapsed.