Roasted Mushrooms & Onions With Beer Broth

Martin Nordin

Serves

6

Ingredients

600g mushrooms
3 teaspoons rapeseed (canola) oil
6 medium yellow onions
200ml beer and lovage broth (see recipe)
Japanese soy sauce
rosemary
thyme
FOR THE BEER & LOVAGE BROTH
2 medium yellow onions
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon Sichuan pepper
1.5 litres vegetable stock
500ml beer (lager or ale)
1 tablespoon malt vinegar (or white wine vinegar)
1 sprig of lovage (see note)
2–3 sprigs of parsley
1 sprig of thyme
sea salt
FOR SERVING
Sichuan pepper oil
thyme
ROASTED MUSHROOM BROTH makes 1½ - 2 litres
600g mushrooms
4 garlic cloves
150ml rapeseed (canola) oil
sea salt flakes and black pepper
1 yellow onion, coarsely chopped
1 small leek, coarsely chopped
1 carrot, coarsely chopped
200ml white wine
2 bay leaves
2 litres cold water
3 sprigs of parsley
2 sprigs of lovage (see note)

CUISINE NOTE:

If you can’t find lovage, you could substitute celery leaves. When using celery in place of lovage, use roughly 1.5 times more.

TIP:

While it’s not for me to tell you how to eat your soup, I usually encourage people to eat the mushrooms and onions before then drinking the broth from the bowl. There’s something that appeals to me about the texture of each bite, washed down with the broth afterwards. But it’s up to you.

View the recipe collection here

Instructions

1.Begin with the broth. Cut the onions in half and burn the cut edges in a really hot, dry frying pan.
2.Add the onions, black pepper, coriander seeds and Sichuan pepper to the vegetable stock and beer in a large saucepan and bring to the boil.
3.(Feel free to toast your spices first for a deeper flavour.) Leave to simmer for around 1 hour. Take off the heat.
4.Add the vinegar and then add the lovage, parsley and thyme.
5.Stir a few times, cover with the lid and leave to stand for 20 minutes. Strain and season with a little salt.
6.Heat the oven to 225°C.
7.Remove the mushroom stems (save them for making broth later).
8.Heat the oil in a frying pan on a high heat until it begins to smoke.
9.Add the mushrooms cap-side down and fry on a high heat for about 10 minutes until they colour.
10.Cut the onions lengthways into either 2 or 4 pieces, depending on size
11.Place the mushrooms cap-side down together with the onions on a baking sheet.
12.Fill all the mushrooms with 1–2 teaspoons of broth and few drops of soy sauce.
13.Drizzle oil over the onions, add a few sprigs of herbs and put the baking sheet in the oven. Roast for 10 minutes.
14.Fill deep bowls with about 300ml of broth.
15.Add the mushrooms and onions and top with Sichuan pepper oil and a little fresh thyme.
16.ROASTED MUSHROOM BROTH
17.Heat the oven to 225°C
18. Cut the mushrooms into equal-sized pieces.
19.Place the mushrooms and garlic cloves on a baking tray and drizzle over 100ml of the oil.
20.Season with salt and pepper.
21.Roast in the middle of the oven for 20 minutes.
22.Pour the rest of the oil into a large saucepan and put on a high heat.
23.When it begins to smoke, add the onion, leek and carrot.
24.Fry them on a high heat for 10–15 minutes so that they take on colour.
25.Lower the heat a bit, add the wine and then the bay leaves.
26.Add the mushrooms and garlic, then cover in the cold water, bring to the boil and leave to simmer for around 1 hour.
27.Remove the pan from the heat. Add the parsley and lovage and leave covered for another 20-30 minutes.
28.Strain the stock into a mixing bowl and keep in the refrigerator or into an ice-cube tray and freeze.

This is an edited extract
from Mushrooms
by Martin Nordin,
photography by Martin
Nordin and Oskar Falck,
Hardie Grant Books,
RRP $39.99. Available
in stores nationally.

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