An Bord Glas has just begun a mushroom promotion to alert us to the fact that our little country produces an enormous quantity of these mysterious fungi, mostly in Border counties such as Monaghan, and that we should all be eating a lot more of them and making mushroom growers even more prosperous than they already are.
If you have been fungiphobic, and have never understood what people see in cultivated mushrooms, then try this recipe for Baked Flat Mushrooms with Butter, Garlic and Parsley, and I assure you that you will be hooked. It is a dish which is extremely versatile. Within the last fortnight, I have used the baked mushrooms with steak and chips and I served it with fried scallops and quince, and added some cooked pancetta to make a brunch dish one weekend morning.
Baked mushrooms with butter, garlic and parsley
4 large flat mushrooms
1 1/2 oz unsalted butter
2 cloves garlic
a fistful of fresh parsley
sea salt freshly ground black pepper
Pre-heat the oven to 200C/ 400 F/gas 6. Soften the butter in a bowl by mashing it with a fork (don't use spreadable butter). With a large, sharp knife or a mezzaluna, chop the garlic and parsley until they are very fine indeed, and then mix them in with the butter, working the mixture together with the fork. Add a sprinkling of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper and work this in also.
Lay the four mushrooms on a baking tray or le Creuset dish (I mention four mushrooms as that is the number supermarkets sell in a pack), and then pack the butter in around the stalk and over the gills. Place in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes