I saw some gorgeous large flat mushrooms (field mushrooms or Portobello mushrooms) at my farmers’ market this past Saturday and grabbed a bagful: 6 large ones to a bag. They were set aside for dinner but I had absolutely no idea what I’d do with them. Thoughts originally turned to frying them in butter and then stuffing them into buns – like mushroom burgers; however, a flick through Nigel Slater’s Kitchen Diaries turned up a recipe for baked mushrooms. A tweak here and there (and cutting down on the amount of butter!) and the following recipe was created. So warm and comforting for yet another rainy and cold London evening.

Baked Mushroom

Baked Portobello Mushrooms
based on a recipe in The Kitchen Diaries
serves 2.

6 large field/Portobello mushrooms
50 g butter, softened or cubed finely
1 clove garlic, minced finely or crushed
1 tsp Dijon mustard
white wine, a good splash
juice of 1/2 a lemon
olive oil
salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.

Place the mushrooms cup side up in a baking dish – they can be packed together but should not overlap. Mix together the butter, garlic, mustard, wine and lemon juice. Distribute this across the mushroom cups. Drizzle olive oil over the whole lot; I also pour some into the base of the dish and swirl it around to get the tops of the mushroom caps (now at the bottom of the dish). Sprinkle salt and pepper overtop.

Cover the baking dish with foil and place in the oven. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the mushrooms have released some of their juice and the whole thing smells wonderfully buttery and garlicky. You’ll need to occasionally baste the mushrooms with some of the buttery juices.

Serve with lots of bread. We are a carb friendly household.