Pink of Perfection

A few years ago, when our upstairs neighbors were moving out, they invited me upstairs to rifle through a tall stack of cookbooks and take what I like. I spotted The Vegetarian Table: France by Georgeanne Brennan and snagged it. It wasn’t the vegetarian part that interested me or the France part necessarily, it was the author.

Rewind to a few years before that, and I was sitting on the grass at a picnic, listening to a woman my mom’s age. She was a therapist and a poet who had once worked as a caterer, and she had that wise, open, self-possession that I want to have when I grow up. It was a sunny day, and she was telling me about living in the South of France. She mentioned Georgeanne Brennan’s cookbooks, and smitten as I was with the recommender, I thought for sure her books would be gems.

There is a larger point here about generations of women having the opportunity to learn from each other, and I’m thinking how powerful an experience my bridal shower was for that very reason: how often do you get to hang out for an afternoon with women who have been over a mountain or two and can tell you about the landscape and then drink a lot of pink champagne and laugh about the journey? Not often enough, it seems to me.

And now back to the present time. I wanted to make a recipe for our French Friday series, but didn’t feel like sweating through anything laborious or fancy or meat-laden. Georgeanne Brennan’s book to the rescue. A wild mushroom ragout sounded like just the sort of warm and hearty fare for a cold night in February. I reached my hands into the mushroom baskets at the fancy grocery store and plucked out chanterelles, black trumpets, oysters, shiitakes, and porcinis. It felt quite luxurious which sometimes, for a random weeknight dinner, is just the touch of the sweet life you need.

Here’s to happy weekend cooking! Making anything good?

The instructions to this recipe make it sound like an abundant amount or rich sauce will develop between the juices the mushrooms release and the added wine. This didn’t really happen for me, but it was still delicious, just not quite so saucy.

Brennan recommends serving the ragout over toasted baguette or white rice. We tossed hot whole wheat pasta with fresh spinach until it wilted, and then added the mushroom ragout. I don’t need to tell you this was absolute heaven with a bit of black truffle salt sprinkled on top. You could also make a nice tartine with toasted bread, a bit of aged goat cheese, and the mushrooms on top.

Wild Mushroom Ragout
from The Vegetarian Table: France
makes about 2 1/2 cups

1/2 pound fresh oyster mushrooms
1/2 pound assorted fresh mushroom, such as chanterelle, shiitake, portobello, cultivated white, or hedgehog, in any combination
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon minced shallot
3/4 tablespoon all-purpose flour
1/4 cup dry white wine
2 tablespoons minced fresh parsley

Clean the mushrooms carefully. Cut the large ones including their stems, into several pieces. Leave the small mushrooms whole or halve them.

In a heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat, melt the butter. When it begins to foam, add the shallots and saute until translucent, 3 or 4 minutes. Reduce the heat to low and add the mushrooms. Cook, turning the mushrooms often, until they begin to release their juices and create the beginning of a broth, 5 to 10 minutes. Raise the heat to medium and sprinkle the flour over the mushrooms, and season with salt and pepper. Then turn them severall time to ensure that they are well coated with flour. Add the wine and stir for 3 to 4 minutes. By now the mushrooms will have reduced in volume by one-half or more, depending upon your mixture, and you will have about 1 cup of thickened broth. Using a slotted spoon, removed the cooked mushrooms to a plate.

Increase the heat to high and reduce the broth to a bout 3/4 cup. Reduce heat to low and return the mushrooms to the pan, folding them into the thickened broth and reheating them thoroughly. Transfer to a warmed serving dish, garnish with parsley, and serve right away.

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