Mario kindly shared his delicious and versatile mushroom sauce that is perfect on risotto, with pasta or polenta and a great accompaniment for any meat dish. It is easy to make and can even be made ahead for later use.

You can a mixture of fresh mushrooms of your choice and the rehydrated dried porcini mushrooms give a depth of flavour to the sauce.

Tasty, thick and flavourful thanks to a good dry white wine, parsley and a hint of chilli it really is a wonderful sauce. Its worth making a good batch to have some left over to use cold or hot on another day.

Many thanks to Mario for sharing this with us.

Mario’s Versatile Mushroom Sauce

Ingredients:

• 600g large mushrooms, could be any type, sliced ( I used large button mushrooms)
• 1 packet dried porchini mushrooms, 20g
• 6 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 300ml of good dry white wine
• 1/3 cup Olive oil (and extra if needed)
• 1 small knob of butter
• 20 grams butter, extra, softened at room temperature
• 1 Tblsp plain flour (plus one Tblsp of water to dissolve)
• Fresh parsley, chopped
• Chilli flakes to taste (optional)

Method

1. In a pyrex bowl, place the dried porcini and pour over boiling water to cover them completely, stir and submerge them using a fork and cover
2. Allow the dried mushrooms to soak for 20 minutes while you prepare the other ingredients
3. Slice or chop the fresh mushrooms and finely chop the garlic cloves and parsley
4. When the dried porcini mushrooms are rehydrated and fleshy strain them from their soaking liquid, reserving this for later.
5. Squeeze the porcini mushrooms and cut any large pieces to make a uniform mix
6. Place the olive oil in a heavy based saucepan over a medium high heat
7. Add the knob of butter and when it foams add the chopped fresh mushrooms, a good pinch of salt and stir to thoroughly coat the mushrooms (add a little extra oil if the mushrooms start to catch)
8. Continue to sweat the mushrooms, stirring and when they are collapsed, add the garlic and stir through for a minute or two
9. Then add the porcini mushrooms and some of the reserved porcini liquid (depending on how much water you have used. Any remaining liquid can be saved for using in other dishes)
10. Add some freshly ground black pepper and the chilli flakes if you choose to use them
11. Keep stirring until the mushrooms have absorbed most of the liquid and are plump
12. Increase the heat and add the dry white wine, allowing it to reduce and cook off the alcohol for a few minutes
13. Then turn the heat down to low
14. Make a slurry using a tablespoon of water to dissolve the flour in a cup and when smooth, stir this through the mushroom mixture
15. Then stir through the softened butter and parsley
16. Keep stirring at a simmer to make sure the sauce doesn’t catch for another 5 minutes until the flour is cooked and the sauce thickens and coats the back of a wooden spoon.
17. Check the seasoning and the sauce is ready to use on rice, pasta, polenta or to accompany meat while hot
18. The sauce can be stored in the refrigerator for the flavours to develop and then heated at later use.
19. Surprisingly, this tasty mushroom sauce is very nice cold and tasted delicious spread on my ham sandwich and for breakfast with scrambled eggs on toast
20. Also serve as an accompaniment for roast chicken breast or a good steak