A Pound of Flesh: Autumn means mushrooms

The arrival of autumn has heralded the arrival of many mushroom varieties in the markets. This is an exciting prospect for us, always intrigued by the possibilities of new earthy flavours and hopefully palatable textures to discover. With the excuse of company to cook for, we were particularly excited to try fresh porcini mushrooms, a favourite variety of ours for pastas and risottos but until now only ever encountered dried.

The stalls at Rialto with fresh porcini sold them (it appeared to us amateur market mushroom foragers) in price brackets based on their size. So the biggest mushrooms were a mere 20euro per kilo, while the smallest (from Tuscany) were 45euro. On our meagre arts budget we had little choice but to opt for a couple of fairly grand specimens. But hey, who said big couldn't be delicious?! Getting caught up in the fungal moment we also got a big handful of finferli.

But markets day also means fish day, as it's impossible to resist the fishy sections when we make it there early enough to catch them. So on the night of the markets shop we cooked a giant pot of little black mussels according to my ongoing favourite recipe.

3 cloves garlic

1 long hot dried red chilli

olive oil

1 can tomatoes, rinsed with a generous amount of water back into the pot

1 glass white wine

1 bunch herbs - oregano/coriander/parsley/thyme depending on taste/availability

2kg mussels

Delicious. A bowl of mussels in a bowl of yummy yummy sweat-inducing soup.

I think Michael got some photos of this feast, maybe he'll post about it too.

The next night was definitely mushroom night though, so it was risotto for four with the return of our friend Elizabeth (ex-NZ pavilion) to Venice. With our Venice-guru Francesco for guidance, we embarked on our first ever fresh porcini experience.

Fresh procini and chanterelle risotto.

Pre-frying the mushrooms in a very generous portion of butter and setting them aside for later, it was really just a matter of making a very basic risotto. The mushrooms were just stirred through at the end, along with a pile each of parsley and parmesan. I should really also have stirred through one more slosh of stock to make it more deliciously creamy, but I got that nervous don't-want-to-overcook-the-rice-and-end-up-with-squidge risotto panic. It was a shame really as, while the mushroom were yummy in an earthy mushroomy kind of way, they were not amazingly porcinily delicious and so the dish could've used a creamy kick.

So our porcini conclusions are (unless someone comes along and convinces us otherwise with some 45euro/kg specimens) that you may as well stick to dried. Even when you buy cheaper packets of dried porcini pieces you still get that heady kick. I don't know if there's something about the drying process that intensifies the flavour, somehow that seems crazy, but having a bowl of porcini soaking in hot water fills a kitchen with such intoxicating pungency, and one is left with both a concentrated stock and a bowl of the most exquisite fungi. Mmmmmmmm.

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Another markets visit means another mushroom haul and another fish night.