Recipes

Place the dried porcini in a medium bowl and cover with 2 cups hot water. Set aside to let them soften while you prepare the lentils and veggies.

Drain the lentils and place in a small saucepan with the bay leaves and ½ teaspoon salt. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat and simmer very gently until just tender. Drain, reserving the cooking water and bay leaves.

Place the onion, leek, garlic, carrots, celery and parsley in a food processor and pulse until finely chopped but still with some texture.

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over medium-high heat and add a glug of olive oil and a knob of butter.  Add the chopped veggies from the food processor along with the dried oregano, half the fresh thyme, the reserved bay leaves, salt and pepper to taste. Cook until the veggies are softened and beginning to caramelize, about 8–10 minutes.

Meanwhile, quickly pulse the Swiss brown mushrooms in the food processor until roughly chopped. Strain the porcini mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid. Finely chop the porcini by hand.

Add the soaked porcini and Swiss brown mushrooms to the pan and cook until the mushrooms have released their liquid, about 5 minutes. Stir through the tomato paste, miso and harissa paste, mixing well to distribute the pastes, and cook through for a few minutes. Then add the red wine and simmer for 2 minutes. Pour in the strained porcini soaking liquid and the lentils. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat, and simmer for 10 minutes, until the liquid is reduced by about half. If your sauce needs more liquid, add some of the reserved lentil cooking water.

While your veggie-lentil base is cooking, you’re going to cook the fancy mushrooms using a technique called ‘wet-frying’, which breaks all the rules you know about cooking mushrooms! Heat another frying pan over medium-high heat. Add a splash of water to the pan – just enough to create a thin film – and add a generous pinch of salt. Throw the fancy mushrooms into the pan and cook over high heat until the water is almost evaporated and the mushrooms are browned on the edges. Turn the heat down, add the other half of the fresh thyme and a tiny knob of butter and cook for another minute. Add these mushrooms to the veggie-lentil base and cook for a few more minutes for all the flavours to combine. Taste to make sure you are happy with the flavour. Remove from the heat and stir through the crème fraiche, coconut yoghurt, or coconut cream.

Serve over the cheesy herbed polenta, mashed or crushed potatoes. If serving as a pasta sauce, add to cooked pasta along with a little reserved pasta water to thin and finish with some parmesan and parsley.