I has so much delicious fun with the cardoncelli (king oyster mushrooms) alla cacciatora the other week, that I vowed to try and adapt a few other meaty recipes for them.
In the meantime though, they seem to have vanished from the shelves something I suspect has to do with those mushrooms having become quite trendy and therefore the production being poached early by chefs, with very little reaching retail.
But I found some last Thursday so decided to attempt to recreate a Roman classic dish, coda alla vaccinara, in a vegan/vegetarian key.
After all, if Obelix was able to understand directions for “Sanglier à la crème” as being “the same as for ‘fraises à la crème’ but with boar instead”, I
ought to be able to wing it in quite the same manner. Right?

RIGHT.

The recipe is fairly long because it start with making a “soffritto”, i.e. the basis for a lot of Italian savory dishes, in particular stews.
You need to take a carrot, one or two celery branches (mine were small so I used two), and an onion, all diced finely and slow cooked in oil (about an hour) in a heavy pan.

This will give you more than you need for the recipe but you can freeze any leftover in small portions for a next time (this amount of soffritto should be good for four dishes).

Once this is done and you only have a fourth of the soffritto in your pan, you can add some more oil (or butter) and fry your cardoncelli which you will have cut in two lengthwise. Fry them on the cut side.

Once they have coloured, add a glass of dry white wine, a teaspoon of tomato paste, two glasses of (vegetable) broth, pepper, a dash of cinnamon, and some nutmeg. If you broth is already salted, no need to add salt at this stage. If it isn’t, then add a little.

This will need to cook slowly for at least an hour (an hour and a half?) in the covered dish and you will need to check to see if the juices have not reduced too much. If they have, add a little water or broth.

After that time, put the mushroom on a plate and add half a teaspoon of dark cocoa to the liquid and partially liquidize/emulsify the sauce with an immersion blender (it’s better if you transfer the juices into a tall recipient as otherwise the sauce tends to splatter). Taste. Add salt and pepper to taste.

You can then return the sauce and mushrooms to the heavy dish and warm them up/keep them warm until serving time.
The sauce is extremely tasty so you’ll want to have something neutral to go with your cardoncelli. Like mashed potatoes or white beans, plain rice or broad flat pasta. You could even go mad and use this as the basis for lasagna.



cardoncelli alla vaccinara

 

This is a marriage made in heaven and vegetarian (can easily be made vegan if omitting butter).

You will need to get some cardoncelli mushrooms (king oyster mushrooms), slice them in two length-wise and pan fry them first in butter (or oil if you want to keep it vegan) on the cut side.
You might have to do this in batches depending on the amount of mushrooms and size of pan.
Once done, return all the mushrooms to the pan.

Chop finely some fresh rosemary and garlic (to taste), add to the pan with some dry white wine. Cover and simmer gently for about half an hour.
Much water will be rendered by the mushrooms so, after half an hour, take the lid off and reduce the liquid until syrupy. Make sure you do not reduce it too much because the sauce is essential.
Salt to taste at this stage, if needed ( I didn't use any).
Keep warm.

Make hummus by pulverizing cooked chickpeas with some of their cooking water, tahini, olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, salt and pepper.  with a high speed blender. The use of cooking water will allow for a smoother hummus with less fat content. Jiggle a bit the lemon/garlic inputs until you are happy with the taste.
Once it is ready you can either warm it up in a microwave or using a bain-marie. It does not have to be hot, warm is enough.

Then spoon a generous portion of hummus per plate, add the mushrooms on top and drizzle with cacciatora juices.


Cardoncelli alla cacciatora and warm hummus
.

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