Friday Fungus: Chestnuts & Mushroom Rarebit (oh, and Happy Christmas)

Although I have done my best to demonstrate a link between mushrooms and Christmas and have provided you with the best breakfast recipe you can imagine, there is still a little distance between our midwinter festivities and our fungal friends. So I though I'd put mushrooms together with chestnuts since those sweet nuts have long been associated with Christmas (mostly to be fair in an often vain attempt to make hard old Brussels sprouts more palatable).

It seems to me that there are three possible types of dishes we could make with chestnuts and mushrooms - stuffings, vegetarian meat replacements (you won't hear me say that too often) and tarts or flans. However a spin through the ether reveals:

Turkey with Glazed Chestnuts, Parsnips and Mushrooms
Roasted Sea Scallops on a Bed of Chestnuts and Mushrooms
Passover (oops wrong time of year) Stuffing with Chestnuts & Mushrooms
Mushroom and Chestnut Wellington (a vegan dish that would make a good Christmas dinner)

However, I still prefer the simple and so give you a grand development of cheese on toast - bacon, chestnut and mushroom rarebit.

You'll need:

Chestnuts (peeled and chopped) about 40z
Fresh mushrooms (yellow oysters are nice) about 8oz - also roughly chopped
Green bacon - two thick cut rashers cut into lardons
Thyme (a sprig or two)
Worcestershire sauce
Good cheddar (enough grated to cover two slices of toast)
Salt & pepper
Oil for frying
Bread for toasting

Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan (oh and turn on your grill - I always forget), fry the bacon lardons for a minute until they start to curl then add the chestnuts and mushrooms. Stir and fry vigorously for two or three minutes then add the thyme and a couple of good dashes of worcestershire sauce. Cover, turn the heat down and leave to cook for about five minutes.

Toast one side of your bread and then spread the cooked mushrooms and chestnuts on the untoasted side, cover thickly with the cheese and return to the grill until the cheese is thoroughly melted.

Enjoy with a nice glass of port.

Happy Christmas!

....

Harvest II!! Blackcurrants - including some recipe thoughts and links!

The blackcurrants have been really good this year - must be the weather as we've done nothing different. My tweet about this crop prompted a little twitter exchange about what to do with bumper crops of blackcurrants. Suggestions have come to make blackcurrant vodka, to make bar-le-duc and to force the surplus onto friends and neighbours (or at least the ones without their own bumper crops to deal with)! Thanks to @celiabb @IdleSi and @willonline.

Here's a few more thoughts - and there's plenty more at the Blackcurrant Foundation's website:

Blackcurrant schnapps - this is a Danish sugar-free recipe so will be sharper than the usual vodka, berries and sugar approach.
Blackcurrant Ice Lollies - courtesy of Waitrose a nice idea (and the leftover mush will make a smoothie too!)

Russian Blackcurrant recipes seem a bit different - blackcurrant soup looks interesting and there's also instructions for making tea with the leaves

Blackcurrant teabread - a baker's solution that might use up the smaller older berries that wouldn't look so good in a cheesecake or a flan

And when you get bored with blackcurrant desserts and teas you can put them in the mani course with pork or with duck. Plus this rather weird combination with emu (specially for our antipodean readers!).

And now it's all over - a little picture of the 'de-berried' bushes as they await the end of Summer pruning (still a load a raspberries to go at first)!