Carla Tomasi is one of the few humans I name on the cellphone. She is also the person who, more than anybody, has taught me about cooking greens. There is an excellent hazard that she will have her hands inside the soil of her marvelous vegetable garden when I name her; her cellphone flips to voicemail, and then she calls back. Today, the ground inside the pots lining her protected veranda because the rain pummelled her thirsty lawn close to Ostia, about 30km outside Rome. The flowers were given some welcome rain, and I got a welcome recipe for her mushroom and potato bake, which I wrote on a Post-It Word and stuck to my desk about a month in the past; the fluorescent yellow answer just waiting for the perennial question: “What shall we’ve got for dinner?”
Some recipes require precision, even as others require generously defined principles and exact recommendations – and this is usually the case with Carla’s vegetable dishes, especially her potato and mushroom bake.
The mushrooms are the heart of the matter, so they must be nicely pro and completely flavorful potato subjects here: they shouldn’t be too floury or waxy. Desiree is perfect, Carla notes during our smartphone call, the heavy rain punctuating our communique like a crossed line. It is important to slice the potatoes thinly; I do that on the slice aspect of a box grater, three mouth-like slats being the nearest factor I even have, and indeed need, to a mandoline. Unless you are cautious, box-grater slats hardly ever produce complete slices, however, rather than half of and three-sector moons, which can be high-quality.
This is right eaten hot, even higher heat. It becomes more compact at room temperature, with the cheese performing as a flavorsome glue, making it simpler to slice. Serve with an inexperienced salad, purple-wine French dressing, and some braised spring vegetables (peas, vast beans, and courgettes, perhaps). I like This form of cooking: ordinary ingredients prepared with fashion. It’s cooking that doesn’t require too much precision. However, it benefits from care – and some proper advice from a pal.
Carla’s potato and mushroom bake
After the step, you may be tempted to pile the mushrooms – something the Italians talk over with as funghi trifoliate – directly to a chunk of toast or stir through pasta – each of which is extraordinary.
- Prep and soak 30 min
- Cook 1 hr 10 min
- Serves four as a prime, six as a starter
- A few dried porcini, soaked for a half-hour in 100ml warm water.
Butter - 500g mushrooms
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- One garlic clove, minced
- 1 tbsp chopped parsley
- 1kg potatoes – all-rounders, no longer too floury or waxy
- 60g parmesan, grated
Soak the porcini in 100 warm water for half an hour. Butter the lowest facets of a shallow 25cm cake tin. Put a circle of baking parchment in the backside and butter that. Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan)/350F/gas four
Slice the mushrooms. Heat the olive oil, walnuts of butter, and garlic in a frying pan, then add the mushrooms and a pinch of salt. As they cook and exude juice, boost the warmth a bit so that only a little liquid remains by the time the mushrooms are tender and collapsed. Drain and chop the porcini and add it to the pan with the parsley.
Peel and slice the potatoes thinly – I do this at the reducing aspect of a field grater. Season with salt and two tablespoons of olive oil in a bowl, then toss.
Arrange half the potato inside the backside of the tin as smartly or swiftly as you want. Cover with the mushrooms and nearly all of the grated parmesan. Then cover with the rest of the potatoes, press down, and dot with butter. Cut a round of baking parchment and press on top to make a cowl.
Bake at the lowest of the oven for 10 mins, move to the oven center for 30 minutes, then turn the oven as much as 200C (180C fan)/390F/gas 6 for the closing 10 mins of cooking to get a golden backside.
Remove from the oven, set apart for 10 mins, then run a palette knife around the brink to loosen the bake. Now, invert it onto a plate and pull it away from the parchment.
The backside – now the pinnacle – should be golden and crusty. If it isn’t, sprinkle with a touch more grated parmesan and slide beneath the grill for a few minutes so it bubbles and browns.
