Friday Fungus: Mushrooms and brown bread

Just before we start I suppose I should point out to my cockney-aware readers that, while brown bread is rhyming slang for dead, it's presence in the title of this blog is mere happenstance. The plan is to talk about mushrooms on toast - or indeed mushrooms on plain old brown bread with the juices soaking through into the good bread and making for a wonderful snack. The snack of kings!

I'm often asked (or maybe just a couple of times) what you should cook mushrooms with or in. And as you know, I'm largely against the slimy excuse for cuisine that is the regular restaurant mushroom dish - all laden with cream and too much garlic. I suppose that for poor quality shop bought mushrooms that's perhaps acceptable but for the good ones and especially the wild ones it is sacrilege.

Simplicity is everything - just frying the mushrooms in butter with some fresh herbs, salt and pepper takes a great deal of beating (served on good brown bread hence the title). Especially when you've just spend a fun four hours hunting the little darlings down. And, if you want to be proper la-di-dah with it all, scrape in a little Parmesan or mature pecorino.

Or do the Christmas version - add some chestnuts. Fantastic!

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