A fragrant bowl of wild rice

Digging around in the pantry these last few weeks has been quite enjoyable. A jar of wild rice – long sleek grains of black and chocolate brown – and a packet of dried porcini were unearthed this weekend. Soup season may have dug its heels firmly in this week, but I’m nowhere near done with it. Not while the celeriac looks this good, anyway.

Clean is Deborah Madison’s typically spare description of this soup and she is, typically, spot on. Clean, as a descriptor, may not seal the deal on recipes ordinarily, but by this stage of winter I find myself longing for something lighter. There’s been a lot of stodge eaten in these parts of late. So this beautiful and yes, clean, balance of warm, wintry earthiness and toothsome, lightly-cooked vegetables seemed to say all the right things. A cloudy, fragrant stock from simmering wild rice and dried mushrooms together; a little soothing creaminess stirred through at the last moment and I served it with a little saucer of amber sesame oil to dribble, at will, across the surface.

The recipe below is the result of gleaning a little from each of Deborah Madison’s wild rice chowders, some streamlining from experience and a small bottle of organic, unhomogenised cream from Tasmania. I must say, I quite like the photos for this one. They say, to me, exactly what I wanted them to. Fresh, clean, healthy. With cream.

It is excellent. A timely reminder that spring, and change, are not too far away.

A wild rice and celeriac soup – feeds 4
Wild rice smells intoxicatingly good as it cooks. Too often that scent is lost in and amongst other grains. Not here. Here, it is star. Attention paid to the quality and flavour of your soy milk will make all the difference if cream is not your thing. Adapted, heavily, from Deborah Madison.

3 handfuls of wild rice (about ¾ cup)
1 handful of dried mushrooms (porcini, shiitake, etc)
Toasted sesame oil
6 cups of water
Sea salt
3 tablespoons of olive oil (or a mixture of butter and oil)
1 large bundle of spring onions
1 bunch of parsley
2 carrots
2 stalks of celery
1 fist-sized potato, scrubbed well
1 small celeriac
1 bay leaf
A few healthy sprigs of thyme
½ cup soy milk or thin cream
Pepper

Place the wild rice in a saucepan, add the mushrooms, a teaspoon of toasted sesame oil and the water. Bring to a boil, add ½ a teaspoon of sea salt and reduce the heat to a burble. Set a lid, slightly ajar, on top and simmer for 40 minutes. When ready – the grains will butterfly open, bursting from their skins – set a strainer over a large bowl to collect the rice stock and drain. Set both stock and rice aside separately.

Warm the olive oil in a wide saucepan over a gentle heat. Trim the spring onions and chop finely. Slice the parsley leaves from their stalks, reserving the leaves. Finely chop the stalks. Add the spring onions and parsley stalks to the saucepan and cook while you chop the remaining veg. Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring from time to time.

Cut the carrots into thick slices and then into large irregular shapes. Trim and slice the celery stalks. Cut the potato into large dice then thickly peel the celeriac and cut it too into large dice. Add the vegetables to the saucepan, up the heat and fry for about 3 minutes. Throw in the bay leaf and thyme and pour in the reserved rice stock along with another cup, perhaps a little more, of water. Bring to a boil, add 1½ teaspoons of salt then reduce the heat and simmer for 20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.

Chop the remaining parsley leaves. Add the soy milk or cream to the soup, remove the bay leaf and tip in the rice and mushrooms and most of the parsley leaves. Warm through and serve in deep bowls, each garnished with a little parsley, lots of pepper and a few droplets of toasted sesame oil to round things off nicely.

Gingko Nut Custards

The Ginkgo Biloba is a tree with an ancient lineage. It’s a living fossil, like a crocodile or the remarkable Wollemi Pine. 270 million years old it is, and that people, commands respect. Reputed to improve the memory, the green fruit, or nut, of the female tree is highly prized by both Chinese and Japanese cuisines. Julie told me that she has watched families in New York gather the stinking fruit from the pavement. Having smelt it walking around The Gardens during her stay, it’s not a task that excites me very much, I have to say. Lazy, I know, but there you go. Better by far is finding a net of gingko nuts, as I finally did, in the fridge of an excellent Asian grocery.

Shell-bound, the ginkgo is shaped much like an almond; one end rounded, the other tapered to a point. Paler and thinner-skinned, with a strong, pungent smell. Once freed, the fruit itself is a little rubbery. Not quite what I was expecting, but interesting, nonetheless. The recipe that follows uses just three and this is, I think, ideal for an untrained Western palate to begin with.

Served in tiny Japanese tea cups, these barely-set custards shudder in a very luscious way. Not sure about you, but I have days when little bowls of this sort of restorative thing are very, very welcome. Wholesome, but light. Smoked tofu adds depth and complexity to the girly-ness of it all, but originally, I made this with about 60g (2oz) of salmon belly cut into small cubes, just as Holly Davis did. It made an extraordinarily good custard, gentler and even more delicate. The earthier grounding of smoked tofu however, feels somehow right for autumn. Play as you like. Best of all, it’s quick and simple. It is surprising just how much liquid two eggs will, tremulously, set. I didn’t expect this to work at all. Lovely stuff.

Steamed ginkgo and mushroom custards – makes 6

Adapted from a Holly Davis recipe. I’ve looked, longingly, at this recipe for years, but never found the nuts. If they elude you, this, I promise, will not suffer their omission in the slightest. I wish I’d made them sooner.

8 dried shiitake mushrooms, destalked
A thin slice of smoked tofu
3 ginkgo nuts, shelled OR 6 almonds, blanched and slivered
2 free-range eggs (best you can afford/find)
½ cup of mirin
1 ½ tablespoons of shoyu, tamari or soy sauce
4 spring onions, white and an inch or so of greens, sliced
A little of green tops of the spring onion, finely chopped

You will also need:
A bamboo (or similar) steamer
A wok
6 Japanese/Chinese teacups, each of about 80ml (1/3 cup) capacity

Soak the shiitakes in freshly boiled water for 1 hour. Soak the tofu separately in cool water to cover at the same time. Drain the tofu, pat dry and cut into tiny dice.

Drain the mushrooms, reserving 1 cup (250 ml) of the liquid. Place the mushrooms in a small saucepan, cover with water and simmer until tender. Scoop out and squeeze gently when ready. Slice caps very thinly. Rub the skin from each ginkgo nut and boil in the same saucepan for 10 minutes. Drain well and slice each into 6 pieces.

Whisk eggs, mushroom liquor, mirin and shoyu together in a bowl until well combined. Divide evenly between 6 teacups and gently arrange the mushrooms, nuts, tofu (or salmon) and spring onions in each cup.

Carefully place the cups in a bamboo steamer. Pour a little water into the base of the wok, bring to a simmer and balance the steamer on top. Place the lid on and steam for 10-12 minutes. Remove and cool for 10 minutes, then serve garnished with spring onion greenery.

The gorgeous, inventive Laurie of Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska is this week’s host of Kalyn Denny’s Weekend Herb Blogging.

A gingery mushroom salad

Foraging for mushrooms, indeed any wild urban food, is a romantic notion for the cook. There are treasures to be found out there on the fringes of the city for the patient and knowledgeable hunter. Alas, not for me. Still, peeling back the plastic film on my pretty city-reared oysters, trundled home in their polystyrene tray, there is a fragrant hint, however mild, of those earthy, cool places. At the risk of repeating myself (but nevertheless forging right on ahead), oyster mushrooms rate Very Highly on my fungi-lovin’ list. It’s the way those edges crisp to gold, just so, in the pan. Or perhaps it’s that soft, velvet tactility. Creatures of the dark with delicate, sensuous gills, and, as such, treated in my kitchen with a little reverence.

Indoors, in the kitchen at least, the cool and damp are kept at bay. Wrapped up in ugg boots and a checked flannelette shirt, I’m cheerfully embracing my inner bogan (oh go on, I know you’re curious). The nights are closing in. April, thankfully, provides lots of goodies for the infinitely more tasteful world of cooking. Loathe though I am to show favouritism, the quiet bridging seasons, hanging between their dynamic, bolder siblings are what hold the fabric of the culinary year together. Each has its bounty and unique beauty, but of them all, it’s autumn I always fall for. Head over heels. Mushrooms, year round favourites, taste just right, right now. After all, we’re knee-deep in what is quintessentially the mushroom season.

Though not technically a salad, while browsing through Peter Gordon’s slightly irritating book of salads ‘tother day it struck me that the very definition of the word has changed dramatically. So, if Mr Gordon can call something that involves loads of exotic ingredients and hours of prepping time A Salad, I can call this (far easier) dish one, too.

Warm oyster mushroom and leek salad – for 2

A light meal, good for a lunch. To be honest, it’s probably better described as a stir-fry, but will you indulge me just this once? The leeks themselves are surprising – like a tangle of egg and gluten-free noodles - and are a perfect way to add one more serving of vegetables to your day.

4 dried shiitake mushrooms, soaked in hot water for 30 minutes
300g (10 oz) of oyster mushrooms
2 leeks, trimmed of dark greens
2 tablespoons of pale sesame oil
2 fat cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds, toasted
Handful of coriander (cilantro) or parsley, chopped
Sea salt
Small knob of ginger, finely grated (about 2 teaspoons)
1 tablespoon of hoi sin sauce, thinned with 1 tablespoon of water

Drain the shiitakes and snip away the stems with scissors. Slice the caps thinly. Slice off and discard the stalks from the oyster mushrooms and tear any large ones in half.

Halve the leeks, wash, dry well and cut into matchsticks. Warm 1 tablespoon of the oil in a frying pan over a high heat. Cook the garlic for 30 seconds, add the leeks and stir fry for a further 2 minutes. Toss in the toasted seeds followed by coriander. Remove to a plate and set aside.

Warm the remaining tablespoon of oil in the same frying pan over a medium heat and toss in the shiitakes. Stir fry for 1 minute, then add the oyster mushrooms. Sprinkle in some salt, lower the heat and let them sizzle away gently for about 5 minutes, turning them individually from time to time to evenly crisp. Add the ginger, stir and cook for a further 30 seconds. It’s all about the ginger here, so don’t let it burn.

Arrange the leeks in small mounds, drizzle over the hoi sin mixture and top with the mushrooms. Garnish with extra coriander leaves and serve warm-ish.

Lisa and Holler’s baby, No Croutons Required, is three months young. April’s theme is soups or salads featuring their favourite ingredient, the mushroom.

'O' is for Oyster Mushrooms

Busy? My word. You must be too. Won’t keep you long.

Mushrooms, the cultivated ‘normal’ variety, sweating quietly under their supermarket-friendly plastic wrap are not my cup of tea. Not for want of trying, mind you. A big field one smothered (and I do mean smothered) in garlicky parsley butter, baked until it oozes dark, earthy juices then quickly, drippingly, sandwiched into a mustard-smeared roll, Nigella-style, is a delicious, decadent meal for one. Chopped small and snuck undetectably into croquettes, mushies are just fine. But given a bundle of smarty-pants exotic mushrooms, things change dramatically. Not that oyster, shiitake or enoki mushrooms are very exotic nowadays – the variety of funghi that turn up at the market is truly surprising - it’s just that they, ahem, look a whole lot prettier.

There you have it. I am, in truth, shallower than you (may have) imagined.

Oyster mushrooms, pale, delicate fans, pretty as a picture, are by far my mushroom of choice. Clusters range in size, some as tiny and sweet as a pinky fingernail, others larger, just, than the soft fist of a newborn babe. Those with palates more refined than mine will tell you that oyster mushrooms taste, vaguely, of the bivalves they unwittingly imitate. Alas, I cannot tell. I love the way their gills and frilly edges crisp in the pan. I love the way they absorb flavour. And yes, I love, love, LOVE the way they look.

Until now I’ve been pan-frying them until golden and, at the last moment, melting in a generous knob of butter laced with lots of finely grated ginger. Simple, elegant. Then a comment left here caught my attention. Heather’s suggestions using sesame oil, the pale, buttery stuff, got me cooking and playing. I made this three times in as many days.

Thank you, Heather, very much indeed.

An Asian mushroom salad - for 2

Okay, so a lot of the ingredients here are, like my choice in mushrooms, smarty-pants ones. I went through a macrobiotic phase, you see, and some of those ingredients, umeboshi vinegar particularly, have stuck. The marinated mushrooms will keep for a few days, refrigerated, in a tightly lidded container. They are a very good addition to anything needing a ‘meaty’, umami hit.

For the mushrooms:

1 very large handful of oyster mushrooms (about 100g)
1 very large handful of fresh shiitake mushrooms (about 8)
1 tablespoon of pale sesame oil (not the dark stuff)
1 tablespoon of Chinese black vinegar
1 tablespoon of tamari (or a good soy sauce)
2-3 drops of dark, toasted sesame oil

Gently tear any large oyster mushrooms in two. Discard any stalks that look too tough. Destalk your shiitakes and slice the caps thickly.

Warm the pale sesame oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Toss in the mushrooms when the oil is hot and sauté them until golden in patches (5-7 minutes is ample).

Remove the mushrooms to a shallow dish or a large bowl and pour over the remaining ingredients. Toss well and leave to marinate for at least 1 hour. Cover and refrigerate if you’re keeping them for longer. Drain before serving.

For the dressing:

Whisk 1½ tablespoons of pale sesame oil with equal quantities of sweet white miso and rice vinegar in a small bowl. Add a large splash of umeboshi vinegar and ¼ teaspoon of hot English mustard (or prepared wasabi). Whisk again.

For the salad:

Take 2 heads of bok choy and separate. Wash and dry thoroughly (sticky sand always seems to accumulate at the base of bok choy leaves). Cut the stalks from the leaves and sliver the stalks lengthways. Keep any very small leaves intact and cut any large leaves in half. Toss them into a large salad bowl with 4-5 handfuls of salad leaves (I used baby spinach) and 1 golden shallot, very thinly sliced. Dress (see above) and toss over and over. Add the marinated mushrooms (see above) and toss again. Serve immediately.

freshest shiitake's I've ever seen...

Confession

Oh, the shame!

After all this time; after all the effort to cook and eat responsibly.

Wasted on 'fresh' chantarelles and beautiful, but aptly named, trompette de la morte. From France.

The food miles. The hideous expense.

I am deeply, deeply ashamed...

A rosemary and red wine sauce

Rosemary is something of a challenge in a vegetarian kitchen. Strongly flavoured, it all too often overpowers subtler ingredients. Rosemary demands your full attention. Her camphor-laced flavour is bitter when used excessively so a considered, disciplined hand is required. While a fleeting hint is delicious, a wallop of the stuff will leave you feeling like you’ve eaten a handful of mothballs.

But she has much to offer. Ancient Greek scholars wore rosemary to improve the memory, their necks garlanded with her long branches. Almost universally she symbolizes remembrance and, of all things, love. An Hungarian friend once returned from a wedding bearing a healthy sprig. ‘If it grows’, she declared, ‘your true love will find you within twelve months’. Romantic stuff. Though it was duly planted, sadly to no avail, I am not one to give up on such fancies quite so easily.

Potatoes, peeled or not, and roasted with whole cloves of garlic and a few healthy sprigs of rosemary are divine; chunks of vegetables skewered onto long stalks, stripped of all but the paintbrush-like tips make great barbeque fare in the warmer months. But, down here at least, winter has firmly taken hold.

The meal (of which this sauce was a part) is too long and complicated to write up in these pages, suffice to say it took all afternoon and much of the early evening. Braised root vegetables (whole shallots, carrots, parsnips and big, earthy mushrooms), a swede and potato mash (made creamy with a spoonful of mascarpone) and perfectly tender Puy lentils, held together by this sauce.

Oh, this sauce.

Enough to make you swoon. Enough to make you pat yourself on the back and marvel at your own culinary genius. We ate silently, slurpingly, appreciatively.

Red wine, porcini and rosemary sauce – adapted from Local Flavours by Deborah Madison

So comforting and good is this sauce that it should prove, once and for all, to anyone doubting the virtues of a meat-free life that vegetarian fare can and does deeply, deeply satisfy.

Small palmful of dried porcini
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 onion, diced
1 large carrot, diced
2 celery sticks, diced
8 mushrooms, quartered
4 cloves of garlic, smashed with the flat of your knife
1x 5cm (2 inch) sprig of rosemary
2 sprigs of thyme
2 bay leaves
Sea salt
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
2 tablespoons of plain white flour
2 cups (500ml) of good, well-flavoured red wine
1 tablespoon of tamari
1 tablespoon of unsalted butter (optional)

Place the porcini in a bowl and cover with 1 litre of freshly boiled water. Set aside.

Heat the oil in a large soup pot or Dutch oven. Add the vegetables, garlic and herbs. Cook over a medium-high heat, stirring only occasionally, until the vegetables are well browned. This should take you about 20 minutes.

Add 1 teaspoon of sea salt to the pot. Stir in the tomato paste and flour, letting it cook for a minute or two to take the ‘rawness’ off the flour. Add the wine, scraping the bottom of the pot to release any caramelized bits and then pour in the porcini and their soaking liquor.

Bring to the boil, then lower the heat, cover with a lid and gently simmer for 45 minutes. Strain through a colander into a large saucepan, pressing down on the vegetables with the back of a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Return the strained sauce to the heat and gently simmer for 15 minutes. Add the tamari and taste for seasoning (it will be pretty damn good, so you won’t need more than a touch of pepper).

Whisk in the butter, if you are using it, just before serving.

Double the recipe and freeze it in 1 cup measurements for fast mid-week cooking. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination; a shepherd’s pie of tender lentils, drained and mixed with 1 cup of sauce and topped with fluffy mash will make an easy mid-week meal. But don’t stop there. Some big mushrooms, sliced thickly, pan-fried until juicy and finished in a ½ a cup of the sauce make the most beautiful topping for toast mid-winter.

This post is being submitted to Kalyn Denny, creator and host of this weeks Weekend Herb Blogging.

Nourishing indeed.

Kaffir lime leaf gyoza

Native to Indonesia, but now grown round the world, the double-barreled leaves of the Kaffir lime tree pack a citrus-laced punch. The perfume they bring to South East Asian food is matched only by their unique floral flavour, lying happily somewhere between a lemon, a lime and an orange. The zest of this knobbled, almost ugly fruit is good, but don’t bother to juice the little brute – more often than not it will be bone dry. Better to stick with that glossy foliage.

Harvesting the leaves commercially is a laborious and painful process; with protective thorny branches, just itching to tear at hands, it’s little wonder the leaves can at times seem expensive. A small potted tree, moved around to catch the sun is a fabulous thing in warmer climates - the fresher the leaves, the better the flavour.

One leaf, added to a pot of jasmine or basmati rice as it cooks, will leave your kitchen headily and exotically scented. And if that rice is also cooked with a dash of coconut milk and a stalk of lemongrass, smashed with the flat of your knife, all the better.

Gyoza with mushrooms and lime leaves – makes 12
These silky little dumplings are a doddle to make. Soft and pillowy on top; crunchy and golden on the bottom. And scented with that lime? Pretty sexy stuff. I’ve gone for the quick and easy prep – for more a more authentically prepared gyoza, pop over here.

75g of fresh mushrooms (Swiss brown [cremini] or shiitake)
75g of tofu, drained and blotted with kitchen paper
2 Kaffir lime leaves, spines discarded and leaves finely shredded
1 small red chilli, deseeded and chopped
1 x 2cm (1 inch) of ginger, peeled and grated
2 spring onions, white and tender greens, chopped
1 tablespoon of tamari
1 teaspoon of toasted sesame oil
12 wonton or gow gee wrappers (freeze the remainder)
1-2 tablespoons light olive oil
½ cup of water

DIPPING SAUCE:
Juice of 1 lime
1 tablespoon of tamari
1 tablespoon of water
2 teaspoons of fish sauce (nam pla - optional)
1 tablespoon of sesame seeds, toasted

De-stalk the mushrooms and roughly chop the caps, then place everything in a food processor and whiz to a smooth paste.

Hold a wonton wrapper in the palm of your hand. Place a generous teaspoon of the stuffing in the centre. Dip your index finger into the water, lightly dampen the edges and bring them together. Pinch the edges tightly to form a half-moon shape. Continue with the remaining wrappers.

Heat the oil in a heavy-based frying pan. When hot, add your gyozas in one layer. Fry over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes, or until golden underneath. Stand back and add the water (it will bubble and spit). Cover the pan, reduce the heat to low and leave to steam for 3 minutes. If there’s any water left at the end, take off the lid and let it evaporate. They will be soft and translucent when ready.

To make the dipping sauce, mix everything together in a small serving bowl.

Serve hot, dipping as you go.

This post is being submitted to Ulrike of Kutchenlatein, this weeks host of Weekend Herb Blogging.

Mushroom and noodle broth

There are times when I cannot face another rich, spicy, vegetable laden dish. Admittedly this happens rarely – who doesn’t love spice in all its guises? - but those moments do arise from time to time. Though my cooking is about as far flung from the thoughtful and gentle world of macrobiotics as you could imagine, I’m nonetheless drawn to its focus on eating and living well. The beauty of Japanese food, the artful presentation of dishes, appeals no end. Armed with some gorgeous exotic Asian mushrooms, a dish with a nod in that general geographical direction seemed seasonally right.

What I’m about to suggest is a pretty, cool weather broth. Flavoured with ginger, it has an earthiness that is echoed in the pure buckwheat soba noodles. It’s a meal in a bowl, just right for slurping noisily and with enough textural variety to keep almost anyone happy. Some ingredients used here live contentedly in my pantry, though possibly not in yours, but none are difficult to find. Besides, they have many uses beyond this delicious broth.

Kombu is a dried seaweed that is mineral-rich and the basis for many Japanese soups. Whenever I cook dried beans or long-cooking grains, I add a small piece of kombu to increase their digestibility, chopping it and adding it to the finished dish, regardless of cuisine.

Mirin is used in place of white wine in dishes that need a little alcohol-inspired lift. If left with the remains of a bottle of wine, I invariably drink it rather than sensibly freezing it in wine glassfuls. Mirin proves to be useful time and again. Good in salad dressings also.

Dried shiitakes are more useful than fresh. How often do you find sad, old shiitakes at the grocer, quietly sweating in their plastic wrap? The dried ones are cheaper, easily found on supermarket shelves, reconstitute incredibly well and have the same nutrients. Fresh is best, but the flavour of dried ones cannot be underestimated. Both are used here, but use reconstituted whole dried ones if good fresh ones allude you.

Soba noodles. Great in a stir-fry. I use traditional 100% buckwheat ones, but there are many varieties out there that are 50% or less buckwheat with the remainder made of wheat flour. If you’re cooking for someone with gluten sensitivity, make the effort to find the real ones. Spiral brand is my favourite.

Exotic mushrooms with soba noodles in a cool-weather broth – for 2-3

You could use the faster cooking udon noodles instead of the soba, but I like the chewy texture that soba provides. The broth makes more than you’ll probably need. Place it in the fridge in a covered container and it will keep for weeks. Add to stir-fried dishes in spoonfuls for a hit of extra flavour.

1 strip of kombu, roughly between 10 and 15cm long
1.25 litres of water
Large handful of fresh shiitake mushrooms
½ cup of dried shiitake mushrooms
1 thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled and thinly sliced
100-150g, of dried soba noodles
2 tablespoons of tamari
2 tablespoons of mirin
½ tablespoon of brown rice vinegar
1 teaspoon of oil
A bundle of enoki mushrooms, bases trimmed
2 spring onions, sliced thinly on the diagonal
Roasted sesame oil to serve (optional)

Place the kombu in a saucepan, pour in 1 litre of the water and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 1 minute. Retrieve the kombu and set it aside.

Remove the stalks from the fresh shiitake mushrooms. Add these stalks to the kombu stock along with the dried shiitakes and the sliced ginger. Bring to the boil, cover with a lid and reduce the heat to low. Simmer, covered, for 30 minutes. Strain the broth into another saucepan, discarding the solids. Add the remaining water, tamari, mirin and rice vinegar and keep warm.

Cook the soba noodles according to the packet instructions. When they are cooked, drain them, rinse and place in a bowl of cold water. Set aside.

Slice the fresh shiitake mushroom caps thinly. Finely chop about one third of the kombu and discard the rest. Warm the oil in a small frying pan over a medium heat and add the sliced shiitakes. Stir-fry for about 5 minutes, and then add the enoki mushrooms and the spring onions. Toss about for 2 minutes and remove from the heat.

Drain the noodles, and divide them between 2 or 3 deep bowls. Ladle over some broth and add the reserved chopped kombu and the stir-fried mushrooms. Taste it and see if you need more tamari or mirin. A drop or two of roasted sesame oil at the end is very good.

A panacea for almost any kind of excess you can think of.

Enoki mushrooms

The freshest enoki's I've ever seen.

Like long, stark white pins.

Recipe to follow.

Oyster mushrooms

Oyster mushrooms, their ruffled gills crushed.

Sauteed in ginger-spiked butter.

A showering of parsley at the end.

Celeriac

It’s an ugly brute celeriac, heavy to hold, gnarled and scarred.

Those roots are a tangled mess. But beneath that rough exterior lurks an ever-so-slightly pale green flesh that quickly oxidizes on contact with the air. The thick skin it would seem shields a very sensitive creature indeed.

The celeriac was a last minute purchase on Saturday at the market. I was actually looking for some witlof to braise with slivers of sun-dried tomato, garlic and the last of the preserved lemons. Instead, I came home with this swollen root, leaves still proudly standing to attention on top. Though they wilted within two days, the root was happy to sit on the bench without them. What to cook?

There are many choices of course: with its close cousin celery in a savory, wholemeal bread and pecorino-topped crumble; cooked with green lentils, garlic and herbs; a soup perhaps? But with a sudden and unexpected downpour of rain, a gratin was calling.

Combined with earthy porcini mushrooms, onion, garlic and licorice-scented star anise, it is a beast transformed. The porcini are soaked in brandy, tamari and boiling water. Simmered in stock until tender and finished with a little cream, this is a delicious meal. Though I’d like to claim this as my own (it’s very, very good) I can’t and won’t even try. It comes from the incredible and exotic Nadine Abensur. Though the recipe appears in her latest book Enjoy (and you should look for it – there’s not a dud in the whole thing) you’ll find the recipe on this site where there’s a printer-friendly version.

Keep a large bowl of cold water, acidulated with the juice of a lemon or lime next to you as you slice the beast. Dunk slices in as they are cut to stop them turning an unsightly shade of grey. I used cheddar rather than gruyere, just scattered it on top of the dish before serving and naturally halved the recipe as there were just the two of us.

That means that I still have half a celeriac to go.

Reckon that crumble sounds good.

Mushrooms

Large, palm-sized portobello mushrooms, still sporting this morning's dirt.

What to do with them?

Tarragon and mushrooms

Tarragon from the garden, a flavouring for mushrooms so fresh that their crisp and perfectly white flesh shocked me.

Reminding me, instantly, why supermarkets suck.

Wholefood

Autumn has become winter this week in Melbourne! So it's time to do a bit of cold-weather thinking and some cold-weather cooking.

I think it is important at this stage that I should define what I mean by Wholefood. It's probably easier to explain as natural food; food that is as far from fast food as you would undoubtedly expect, but also food that includes whole grains, legumes and pulses cooked from dried and lots of fresh fruit and veggies. With little bit of full-fat yoghurt, organic butter and occasionally some goats cheese. Even the odd bit of full-fat, unhomogenized and organic milk. Fish and on rare, special occasions, good organic meat. This kind of food should be seasonal, healing, nurturing but above all exquisitely beautiful and delicious.

I enjoy cooking and am convinced that if you are so inclined that you should share food as the gift that it is. So few people have time to cook. Fewer people find that time spent cooking is NOT time wasted. This is why we are faced with so many food-related allergies (all that inedible gunk they put in packaged food makes me shudder), obesity and diabetes. Not to mention the way that food affects women and our self-image. Who hasn't looked at those gossip magazines and thought oooohh, hasn't such-and-such gained weight? As though it were either interesting or important! This translates to bad relationships with eating. But food is a healer and nourisher - it's not the enemy.

But so-called health food has an image with a kind of beige-ness to it - so politically correct, so time-consuming to prepare and it often looks unappetizing or too healthy. I reckon that it can be made sexy! It's time for an image change...

So here's a quick meal that is beautiful, warming, health-giving and will make you happier and fuller without gaining weight.

Buckwheat with mushrooms and walnuts

Serves 2

2 tablespoons of olive oil

1 cup of whole, un-roasted buckwheat (from health food shops)

2 cups of water or veggie stock

500g of mixed mushrooms, sliced - include some shiitakes

2 cloves of garlic, very finely chopped

1 tablespoon of tamari or soy sauce

1 tablespoon or more of chopped, toasted walnuts or pine nuts

1 tablespoon of finely chopped parsley

Heat 1 tablespoon of the olive oil in a heavy-based saucepan and fry the buckwheat, stirring all the time, until slightly browned and aromatic. Pour in the water, bring to the boil and then clamp the lid on tightly and reduce the heat. Simmer very gently for about 15 minutes until the buckwheat is very soft and all the water is absorbed.

Meanwhile, heat the remaining oil in a frying pan and fry the mushrooms until dark and chewy (about 10 minutes). Add the garlic and tamari and continue to cook for a couple of minutes before stirring into the cooked buckwheat. Garnish with the chopped walnuts and parsley.

Serve, hot, with some steamed broccoli and lemon wedges.