Mushroom Paste with truffle
Concept
I usually purchase a truffle mushroom paste from the farmgate but as this was unavailable, I wanted to experiment with fresh truffles and make my own.
Concept Details
I could only find two recipes for mushroom paste and none for a truffle mushroom paste on the internet. However, I was able to research the list of ingredients for several truffle mushroom pastes and had the list of ingredients on the label of my usual brand. There was not a lot of variety of fresh mushrooms available, so I settled on white and brown cup mushrooms and, to add more flavour, dried porcini and shitake mushrooms. Weights and measures were based on experience. I wanted a starting point and could tweak the quantities on future attempts.
Recipe
Ingredients
2 large or 3 small shallots
2 anchovies plus tbsp anchovy oil
1 tbsp olive oil
½ cup sliced black olives or 1 cup whole black olives
Dried Porcini Mushrooms
Dried sliced shitake mushrooms
5 Brown Mushrooms
4 Medium Mushroom cups
3 small cloves garlic
¼ cup brandy
Method
Soak dried mushrooms in hot water.
Finely chop shallots and place them in a frypan with anchovies, anchovy oil and oil. Fry over low heat until the onion is translucent, and the anchovies dissolve.
Finely dice the brown and cup mushrooms
Finely dice the olives.
Crush the garlic.
Add the fresh mushrooms to the onion mix and turn up the heat. Allow the fresh mushrooms to brown, and once they have released their liquid, turn the heat down.
Drain the dried mushrooms, reserving the soaking liquid, and finely chop them. Add these to the mushrooms in the pan with the garlic and olives.
Deglaze the pan with the brandy and allow to cook out.
Stir and add some of the reserved mushroom liquid. Once this has cooked out, add more liquid, stirring with each addition. Cook for a further 15 to 20 minutes until the flavour has developed.
Notes
Use as a flavour hit for mushroom sauce.
Make into a truffle mushroom paste by allowing it to cool and adding shaved chopped truffle.
Video
Conclusion
This was very successful as a first attempt with no recipes available to draw from. I felt the black olives slightly overpowered this version, but otherwise, it was very tasty. Without being able to do a side-by-side comparison, I don't know how much like the original this is.
Future Development
I do not think this is quite there yet. I want to make it again with more anchovy and less olive. The flavouring ingredients must complement one another, with none being more prominent. I would also like to try with some different mushroom varieties.