This is another recipe adapted from the excellent Nick Nairn book, New Scottish Cookery. Not that it’s very new any more. It was one of the first cookbooks I bought. My graduation from the simplicity of my other book called something like “400 recipes with only 4 ingredients”.
One of the first recipes I tried from the book is also the one that I’ve made the most. Garlic stuffed mushrooms on toast. It’s pretty easy to see why this was the recipe I went for first. It’s simple but produces great results and is flexible enough to be a dinner party starter (it made an appearance at Christmas one year), a simple main course or a quick dinner for one.
Nick’s version includes bacon, breadcrumbs, lemon juice, parsley and garlic in the stuffing. That’s a decent base which is easy to play about with so for the version I present to you I swapped the bacon (which I forgot to defrost) for some chopped tomato and added anchovies as well as some thyme.
In the interests of full disclosure the single massive mushroom in the picture was joined by two friends once the picture was taken. I’m pretty stuffed now!
Serves 2 as a main 4 as a starter
4 large portobello mushrooms
1 onion, finely chopped
2 anchovy fillets
1 lemon
100g breadcrumbs
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
1 tomato, de-seeded and chopped
Chopped parsley
Thyme
Olive oil
Butter
Pre-heat the oven to 230 C.
Remove the stalks from the mushrooms and roughly chop them.
Heat about a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan and add a knob of butter, the mushroom stalks, onion, garlic and anchovies.
Cook gently for 5 minutes until everything soft.
Add the breadcrumbs, parsley, thyme and tomato then stir it all together.
Oil an oven tray and place the mushrooms on it. Season them and squeeze over the juice of half a lemon then drizzle over some olive oil.
Stuff the mushrooms with the breadcrumb mix and drizzle some more oil over the mix.
Place in the oven for 10 minutes until the crumbs have turned golden brown.
Serve on some fresh toast.
Mince and Skirlie 