Skip to main content

Polenta with mushrooms


I discovered frozen mixed mushrooms (apparently with some pieces of porcini in it, but I couldn’t see many). In any case, unable to forage now, these looked good to me.

I used a 300g bag of frozen mixed mushrooms

30g dried porcini mushrooms,

a few garlic cloves

olive oil

tomato passata

salt

The dried porcini mushrooms need to be soaked for a an hour or so.

Sauté the garlic with the olive oil, add the frozen mushrooms, and after five minutes the porcini mushrooms and their soaking water. Add the tomato passata (about a cup) and simmer for 30 minutes. Stir often and add water if necessary. Add salt to taste.


Photos by Alessandra Zecchini©

I served these mushrooms with polenta, and then, since I had a few left over, I made some pasta the day after, but I'll talk about that tomorrow!

Labels:

Comments

  1. PamApril 21, 2010 at 12:43 AM

    This looks and sounds delicious to me. I've never used frozen mushrooms; in fact, don't believe I've ever seen them in the grocery store. I love polenta and this seems like a perfect combo to me!

    ReplyDelete
  2. DailyChefApril 21, 2010 at 6:21 AM

    What kind of gravy did you use on the mushrooms? Looks like some brown gravy?

    ReplyDelete
  3. AlessandraApril 21, 2010 at 6:45 AM

    @ Pam: I never seen frozen mushrooms like these before outside Italy. They are very versatile, a bag has several types inside, including fresh (i mean, frozen) porcini.

    @ Chef: No gravy Chef, it is the mushroom cooking sauce, which takes is colour from the mushrooms and the passata (Italian tomato sauce). If it gets too thick just add water while cooking.

    ReplyDelete
  4. TalitaApril 21, 2010 at 7:09 AM

    So good-looking! Polenta is delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  5. YariApril 23, 2010 at 11:28 PM

    Yes, frozen mushrooms (with porcini) are common in every Italian supermarket. They taste good an are very practical!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Chef EApril 24, 2010 at 3:09 AM

    Ummm, this is right up my gravy loving alley!

    Looks wonderfully tasty!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to make Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum), and Sweet New Zealand

Rose Turkish Delights (Lokum) Before I start I would like to say that I don't have a sugar thermometer, essential if you are really into confectionery, and that I didn't use much sugar for these Turkish delights. Many recipes use much more sugar, and it is not that I wanted to make a low sugar treat here (it is still pretty sweet), it is just that making it at home really makes me realize how much sugar there is already in my diet, and if I can have something with a little less... well, why not! This method is 'home friendly' i.e. these can be made at home with very little effort and equipment, and the recipe comes from my book  Sweet As...  where I also have the recipe for lavender and orange blossom Turkish Delights. Ingredients 1 l water 300 g sugar 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 g cornflour 1 tbsp frozen raspberries 1 tbsp rose water icing sugar (very little) and cornflour (lots) to dust. In a pot put hal...
9 comments
Read more

Silver beet Paneer, a variation of Palak Paneer

The other day I showed you my curry made with borage , ‘invented’ because I have tons of it in the garden! The other green-leaf crop that does well in Auckland is silver beet. My old plants (from last year!) got so tall that I started collecting only the little leaves from the stalks, and they look like spinach. One of my favourite Indian dishes is Palak Paneer (or Panir), spinach with panir cottage cheese, and this variation is made using my silver beet. I washed (many times!) the small silver beet leaves, and then I steamed them and drain them. In a heavy pot I heated 2 tbsp of vegetable oil (I used rice bran oil) and sautéed for 30 seconds: 1/2 tsp ground cumin 1/2 tsp ground coriander 1 tsp turmeric 1/3 tsp ground chili then I added 2 roughly chopped shallots and, after 3 minutes, a good pinch of salt and the cooked silver beet. I cooked everything on low for about 20 minutes (you may need to add just a little water if the silver beet is too dry) and then finely pureed the content ...
5 comments
Read more

Home Made Marzipan Sweets

This is another recipe from my book Sweet As , and something that I love to make for Xmas. I would like to say that for marzipan you should get the best almonds around, natural, but here in New Zealand the almonds taste different from the ones in Italy. They are imported, not sure where from most of the time, but they are not top grade almonds. Still, with a few tips, you can make your marzipan taste great even with 'regular' almonds! Buy them natural, not blanched, you need to blanche then yourself or the result will be too dry. To blanch them you need to put them in boiling water for a couple of minutes, and then add cold water and take the skin off, one by one. For this recipe you will need: 200 g almonds 100 g icing sugar 5 apricot kernels. As I was saying before, the almond here have little taste, so I like to collect the stones from apricot and get the almonds out. They are a real pain to crack! In the photo above you can see apricot stones and kernels. The apricot kernel...
13 comments
Read more