Porcini Bread Sauce Recipe
by Claire Thomson
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Easy
This recipe featured in my fifth book, Home Cookery Year, a huge cookbook on seasonal cooking published five years ago. It is included in the autumn chapter, and over the years since publication, I have had countless people message to say how much they love it.
Essentially, this is a bread sauce into which you add a generous measure of soaked and finely chopped dried porcini, and the soaking liquor, deliciously scented, is also used in lieu of some of the milk in a more traditional bread sauce
recipe. In short, if you’re a fan of bread sauce (we’re talking Christmas turkey or a regular roast chicken on Sunday, even alternative game birds or sausages) then you’re going to go doolally about this bread sauce. No going back now.
From Mushroom by Claire Thomson (Quadrille, £22), photography © Sam Folan
Ingredients for the Porcini Bread Sauce Serves: 4
- 30g dried porcini mushrooms or dried wild mushrooms
- 500ml whole milk
- 2 cloves
- 1 small onion, ½ peeled and ½ finely chopped
- 1 large bay leaf
- a few scrapings of grated nutmeg, to taste
- 50g butter
- 80g fresh white breadcrumbs
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
How to make Porcini Bread Sauce
- Add the dried mushrooms to a heatproof bowl, pour over 100ml (31/2fl oz) of boiling water and leave to soak for about 10 minutes until soft. Once softened, remove the mushrooms and finely chop, reserving the soaking liquid.
- Heat the milk with the cloves, onion half and bay leaf in a medium saucepan over a low-moderate heat until just about to come to a boil. Remove from the heat, add the nutmeg and leave the milk to infuse for about 20 minutes.
- Cook the finely chopped onion and chopped mushrooms in half the butter in a medium saucepan over a moderate heat for 5 minutes until the onion is soft and translucent.
- Strain the milk through a sieve into a clean saucepan, discarding the flavourings, and stir in the breadcrumbs and reserved mushroom liquid, leaving behind any sediment. Set the pan over a very low heat and cook for 5–10 minutes, stirring now and then, until the crumbs have swollen and the sauce is thick.
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When thick, stir in the remaining butter and add salt, pepper and some more nutmeg to taste. Serve.
About the author
"I was born in Zimbabwe and spent my early childhood there before moving to London aged 8, from the city to Shropshire, in deepest countryside, until leaving home with a backpack and books (in a time before kindles). I have cooked in many places around the world and think cooking good food with interesting people from wherever in the world is where I am happiest. Also too, my own kitchen table with the children home from school, cup of tea, glass of wine and so on. Professional chef, food writer, author and mother of 3, I am almost always in an apron and am never without something to cook, someone to feed. Have knives and will travel!"
