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RECIPE

Portobello ‘steaks’ and butter bean mash

What gives the mushrooms their verve is the chillies and spices and all the flavoured oil that coats them.

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Photo: Jonathan Lovekin

Serve this with sautéed greens, if you like.

  • Preheat the oven to 150°C fan.
  • Put all the ingredients for the steaks and 1 tablespoon of flaked salt into a large ovenproof, lidded saucepan. Arrange the mushrooms domed side up, then top with a piece of parchment paper, pushing it down to cover all the ingredients. Cover with the lid, then transfer to the oven for 1 hour. Turn the mushrooms over, replacing the paper and lid, and return to the oven for 20 minutes more, or until the mushrooms are very tender but not falling apart. Use a pair of tongs to transfer the mushrooms to a chopping board, then cut them in half and set aside.
  • Use a spoon to remove the onion, garlic and chilli (discarding the stem) – don’t worry if you scoop up some of the spices and oil. Put them into the small bowl of a food processor and blitz until smooth. Return the blitzed onion mixture to the saucepan, along with the mushroom halves, and place on a medium-high heat. Cook for about 5 minutes.
  • While the mushrooms are cooking, make the mash by putting the beans into a food processor along with the lemon juice, olive oil, ½ tsp flaked salt and 2 tablespoons of water. Blitz until smooth. Transfer to a medium saucepan and cook on a medium-high heat for about 3 minutes, stirring, until warmed through.
  • To serve, divide the butter bean mash between four plates. Top with four mushroom halves per plate and spoon over a generous amount of the oil and its accompanying aromatics — you won’t need all of it, though.

Recipe adapted from Ottolenghi FLAVOUR, (Ebury Press)

First published in the JC October 8 2020

Ingredients

8 medium to large Portobello mushrooms (about 650g), stems removed

10 garlic cloves, peeled

1 onion, peeled and cut into 6 wedges (150g)

1 tbsp chipotle chilli flakes

1 red chilli (15g)

4 tsp cumin seeds, roughly crushed in a pestle and mortar

1 tbsp coriander seeds, roughly crushed in a pestle and mortar

2 tbsp tomato paste

400ml olive oil

For the butter bean mash:

1 x 700g jar of good quality cooked large butter beans, drained (500g)

1 ½ tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp olive oil

Flaked sea salt

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