RECIPES WITH KATE HUMBLE

By Kate Humble

If you are already dreading the long, dark days of winter, I have a little piece of advice for you: don't fight nature! Embrace the season, keep your feet warm, and eat healthily. Spring will be here again soon!

There are certain things I will always associate with my grandmother, Paddy. Rich tea biscuits she ate in bed with her morning tea before she got up. Housecoats. Chocolate buttons. Gin and tonics. And, rather oddly, mushrooms on toast. I say oddly because I cannot recall her ever making them for me, but for reasons long forgotten, she and that glorious smell of mushrooms fried in butter go together. I would love to say that I spend every autumn morning foraging for wild mushrooms, which I then prepare for my breakfast, but that would be a lie. My knowledge of fungi is woeful, and my fear of picking, cooking and eating something that looks harmless but is, in fact, deadly is – for the reassurance of all those I hold dear – great enough to stop me trying. Every year I plan to go foraging with my friend Simon, who is an expert on mushrooms, and then time does its thing, and the season is once again over. For the following recipe, you can use any mushrooms you like, whether from your local woodlands and fields or from the shelves of your supermarket.

Mushrooms on Toast 
Serves 1

A knob of butter
1 clove garlic
150g mixed mushrooms (this sounds like a lot of mushrooms but they shrink a lot when cooked, and also they are so delicious you shouldn’t scrimp)
Plenty of chopped parsley
Crème Fraiche (optional)
Oil
Salt and pepper

Toast to serve - your yummy, buttery mushrooms deserve a thick slice of toast to truly enjoy them, I feel. I go for wholemeal, but you go for what you want, as long as it isn’t white and flabby.
 
Melt the butter with a glug of oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Crush or grate the garlic and add to the pan. Allow to soften but not brown.
 
Roughly chop any large mushrooms, keeping them chunky. Add to the pan. Toss them gently every now and then to ensure even cooking. They will start to give off some of that delicious fragrant juice, which will mix so gloriously with the butter. When the mushrooms are starting to soften (after 3-4 minutes), now is the time to pop your toast in the toaster.
 
Sprinkle most of the parsley over the mushrooms (keep some for the end), a good pinch of sea salt flakes and some black pepper. If you want to add crème fraîche (I am not a fan, but some people swear by it), do it now.
 
Turn the heat down and allow the mushrooms to bubble away quietly until your toast is done. Whether you add more butter to your toast is up to you, but whichever way you decide, top with the mushrooms and their garlicky, buttery juice, scatter with parsley and then tuck in.