In her book Kwong notes that this recipe was inspired by Franca and Stefano Manfredi and her time at The Restaurant Manfredi. It does have a beautiful Italian salt-of-the-earth feel about it. It is delicious on some crunchy toast or as a side to poultry or meat. Don’t be afraid to mix up the varieties according to what you can get your hands on – just aim for about a handful each of 5-6 types of mushrooms. In fact I use this method now every time I cook mushrooms – just adjusting the quantities accordingly.
Serves 2 (main), 4 (side)
6 garlic cloves
3 salad onions, trimmed and finely sliced
¾ tablespoon sea salt
100g fresh button mushrooms
100g fresh oyster mushrooms
100g fresh shiitake mushrooms, stems discarded
100g fresh Swiss brown mushrooms
100g fresh enoki mushrooms
100g fresh black cloud ear fungus
100g unsalted butter, roughly chopped
½ cup extra virgin olive oil
pinch cracked white pepper
½ cup dry white wine (I didn’t have any so I used red instead)
½ cup roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
Place garlic, onions and salt in a heavy-based pan. Cover with all the mushrooms except the enoki and cloud ear fungus. Top with butter, olive oil and pepper and place over high heat for 5 minutes, without stirring, to allow the flavours of the onions and garlic to penetrate the mushrooms.
Add wine and remaining mushrooms, stirring to combine. Reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about 5 minutes (it took me a few minutes longer than this) or until mushrooms are just tender. Stir in parsley and serve.
I used to be intimidated by the complexity of Asian dishes, thinking it implied too long at the stove. Heart and Soul unlocked a lot of the secrets – from ingredients to techniques. Don’t let the long ingredient lists put you off – a lot of these bits and pieces need to be bought once and will last for ages – and once you know how to use them you will pull them out again and again. I have since bought a few of the essentials (I’m still saving for a good wok) and Asian cooking has become an enjoyable challenge.