Mushrooms on Toast

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Large heavy-based frying pan or skillet
• •Toaster or grill

Instructions

1. 1

   Prepare the mushrooms

   Tear the larger mushrooms into rough pieces with your hands. Halve or quarter the smaller ones. You want irregular shapes, not neat slices, because the torn edges catch the heat and go crisp and golden in ways a knife cut never will. Leave any small ones whole. Give them a brush if they're dirty, but don't wash them. Wet mushrooms steam instead of frying, and steamed mushrooms are a sad thing.

   Use whatever mushrooms look best. A mix of field mushrooms and chestnut mushrooms is reliable and good. If you spot chanterelles or girolles at the market, add a handful. They'll earn their place.
2. 2

   Get the pan hot

   Put a wide, heavy pan over a high heat with the oil and half the butter. Wait. This matters more than anything else in the recipe. The pan needs to be properly hot, not warm, hot. You'll know because the butter will foam, spit once, and start to smell toasty. That's your moment. If you add the mushrooms to a lukewarm pan, they'll leak water and stew. A hot pan sears them. The difference is everything.

   Don't crowd the pan. If your pan isn't big enough to hold all the mushrooms in a single layer, cook them in two batches. Crowded mushrooms steam. Spaced mushrooms caramelise. This is a hill worth standing on.
3. 3

   Cook the mushrooms

   Tumble the mushrooms into the hot pan and spread them out. Now leave them alone. Two or three minutes without stirring. Let the undersides catch colour. When you see the edges turning golden and the kitchen starts to smell like autumn, give them a turn. Add the remaining butter, the sliced garlic, and the thyme sprigs. Toss everything together. The garlic needs a minute, no more, just enough to soften and lose its raw bite. Season generously with salt and pepper. Taste one. Adjust.

4. 4

   Toast the bread

   While the mushrooms finish, toast your bread until it's properly golden and firm enough to hold what's coming. Thick slices. Butter them while they're still hot, so the butter melts into the bread and disappears.

5. 5

   Finish and serve

   Squeeze a little lemon juice into the pan, just enough to lift things, not enough to taste sour. Scatter the parsley through and stir once. Pile the mushrooms onto the buttered toast, letting the pan juices soak into the bread. All of them. Don't leave anything behind in the pan. Eat immediately. If you're adding an egg, fry it in the mushroom pan while the toast is going, so it picks up all the butter and thyme left behind. Set it on top. Let the yolk run into everything.

   The lemon is quiet here. You shouldn't taste lemon. You should taste mushrooms that somehow taste more like themselves. That's what the lemon is doing.

Chef Tips

• •The pan temperature is the whole recipe. Everything else is detail. A hot pan with a little oil and butter will transform ordinary mushrooms into something deeply savoury with golden, almost crisp edges. A cool pan will give you grey, wet, apologetic mushrooms. You know which you'd rather eat.
• •Field mushrooms from a good greengrocer or market have a depth of flavour that the white button sort can't match. If you can't find field mushrooms, chestnut mushrooms are a worthy second. The supermarket white ones will do in a pinch, but they need the hot pan even more than the others.
• •Don't skip the lemon. You won't taste it as lemon. What it does is sharpen everything else, making the butter taste more like butter, the mushrooms more like mushrooms. A quiet ingredient doing quiet work.
• •If you have a good loaf going stale, this is its finest hour. Day-old sourdough, toasted hard and buttered generously, stands up to the mushroom juices without going limp. Fresh bread is fine. Stale bread is better.

Advance Preparation

• •This wants to be cooked and eaten in one unbroken movement. There is no making it ahead. The mushrooms lose their edges and the toast loses its crunch. Ten minutes from pan to plate.
• •You can tear the mushrooms and slice the garlic the night before if mornings are rushed. Keep them covered in the fridge. But the cooking itself is a present-tense thing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 300g)