Super Fast Mushrooms in Minced Garlic and Parsley

I promise this will be quick. This is one of those lame recipes which when brought to the dinner table has the personality to rub shoulders with your gorgeous main. Pair it with our centrepiece chicken roast or baked cauliflower, even your toasty baguette, and you will have a winner!

After the scintillating debut this dish made to our dinner table the other day, with about just a pound of Swiss brown mushrooms, the husband got all enthusiastic and got one kilo of white and brown mushrooms for two and a half people!

Yes, the baby ate it too and quite enjoyed sucking on the garlic sauce from the quartered mushrooms we gave her.

Ingredients for Mushrooms in Minced Garlic and Parsley are:

500 grams of any variety of small mushrooms, stalks removed, cleaned
1 pod of garlic cloves, peeled and minced
Handful of fresh, flat-leaf parsley, minced
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoons good-quality olive oil
Freshly cracked black pepper
Salt

In a pan or wok, heat the butter and the olive oil together. Add the minced garlic and parsley to the oil-butter. Let them sauté for a minute or two, make sure you don’t burn the garlic.

Now add the mushrooms face down if you are making about a pound. Make sure some of the garlic and parsley also goes inside the hollow of the mushrooms. You can also mince the garlic and parsley together, so that the flavours get married to each other right on your chopping board.

Let the mushrooms get some color from the butter-olive oil in the pan for the next 2-3 minutes. Then stir fry them on high heat for another couple of minutes.

Season with salt and pepper. Stir again. You will see the natural juices of the garlic and parsley bubbling at the bottom of the pan. That’s when you know you ought to turn the heat off and stop cooking the mushrooms.

Serve the Mushrooms in Minced Garlic and Parsley immediately. You can even serve this as an appetizer in a party. Just stick fruit picks in each mushroom and have the beautiful platter go around.

I had leftovers the next day and I used them to make a mushroom soup in chicken broth, with boiled and shredded chicken and tofu. There was no need for seasoning either. It was that good.

Make It Tonight

I am always looking out for ideas and inspirations for dinner. Most nights I have what is proverbially a chef’s block.

Yesterday’s dinner was about quickly putting a meal together with some inspirations peeping out from the fridge (remember those black olives and the remaining couscous?) and some fresh white mushrooms and pork tenderloin.

After a rain-drenched afternoon, the idea of a hot soup was all too comforting and the soup of the evening ended up in a bowl of Cream of Mushroom Soup, actually my first time in making a mushroom soup. Nothing fancy, just some unsalted butter melted in a pan and the chopped red onion sautéed in it. Adding flour little by little, so as not to form clumps and then tossing in all that freshly chopped mushrooms. A simple seasoning of salt and pepper and some drizzle of heavy cream. Isn't that the most easy thing to do and under 20 minutes – prep to cook time!
Did you know in Chinese culture its okay to slurp your soup? So curl your stiff upper lip and s-l-u-rrrrrrrr-p.

Oil has always been a cause of worry for everyone whether its deep water or dietary. I have had many anxious moments each time I have wiped off oily fingers from biting on to that chicken or fish finger. Well, this variation of “fingers” made with some lean pork tenderloin may just quell your calorie-intake worries.

Cut thin strips of any meat that you choose – fish, chicken or pork work best. Dust them with corn starch and sprinkle some salt and pepper.

Dip them in an egg batter and roll them in bread crumbs. This is where you don’t turn them into unhealthy chunks of meat. We throw them in the oven at 350 °C with TWO teaspoons oil drizzled over them and bake each side till they turn golden brown. It usually takes about 20-25 minutes.

I made a yogurty version of the mustard-honey dip to go with the Pork Fingers.

Mix together plain yogurt, honey and old style wholegrain mustard. Enliven the taste of your Pork Fingers with this sweet-tangy dip!

 
After a soup and a starter, I went ahead and did a room-temperature couscous salad with pomegranate, broiled corn kernels, garden greens and that one leftover sprig of basil.   This is the freshest a Moroccan-inspired Couscous Salad can get. Toss everything together in a large bowl with the already cooked couscous, throw in a handful of very finely chopped red onion, some garden greens, kalamata olives, torn basil leaves and some freshly squeezed lemon juice. Add EVOO, salt and white pepper. Serve.

Some things in life are simple. And it never hurts if its this easy.

So what’s your meal plan for tonight?