Recipes, guides and kitchen know-how. Mostly useful, occasionally silly.
Garlic Mushrooms - Creamy, on Toast, Gone Before You Sit Down
Creamy garlic mushrooms that come out golden, not grey: a wide pan, hands off for the first minute, garlic in last, then cream, lemon and thick sourdough toast.
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- Prep5 min
- Cook12 min
- Serves2
- Calories~540
Calories are approximate, per serving, worked out from the ingredients. Brands and portion sizes vary.
There is a moment, about four seconds after I put a plate of these on the table, when I turn round to get a fork.
When I turn back, the plate is lighter. Nobody saw anything. Erin is chewing. Royal decree: princesses are served first. Apparently that includes my plate.
This is why the title says "gone before you sit down". It isn't a boast. It's a police report.
Garlic mushrooms are the most British thing Spain ever gave us. Golden, buttery, a bit of cream, a lot of garlic, piled onto toast so thick it needs planning permission.
And they're so easy to get wrong. Most people end up with a pan of grey, squeaky slugs swimming in their own juice. Grey and squeaky is not a good look on a mushroom. Or on anyone.
This garlic mushrooms recipe fixes that with three rules: a wide pan, hands off, garlic last. That's it. Twelve minutes of cooking and you've got proper creamy mushrooms on toast for two.
I went through a pile of recipes - Spanish tapas bars, a London restaurant founder, pub classics and a few food scientists - and kept only the bits they agree on. Erin asked if it could be beans on toast instead. It cannot. We've discussed this.
From Spanish tapas bar to British pub
In Spain they're champiñones al ajillo - mushrooms "in the garlic way". Olive oil, garlic, parsley, a pan that's properly hot, done. A tapa you eat standing up, ideally while arguing about football.
Britain saw that, added butter and cream, and put it on toast. Classic us. See something lovely, make it heavier, serve it on bread.
The Spanish tip I've stolen for this one comes from Directo al Paladar: use a big pan, and don't move the mushrooms for the first minute so they "seal and take on colour". Crowd them, they say, and they release water and stew instead of browning.
Karlos Arguiñano, the Basque chef who's been cooking on Spanish telly for decades, says the same thing in fewer words: cook them briefly, over a fairly strong heat.
Here's the bit nobody tells you. Mushrooms make vitamin D in sunlight, a bit like we do. A review of the research in the journal Nutrients found ordinary shop mushrooms usually have under 1 microgram per 100g - but sliced ones left in midsummer German sun hit 17.5 micrograms in just 15 minutes. And a quick pan-fry kept most of it.
So a mushroom on a sunny windowsill is technically having a better day than me. Not in a British October, mind. Nobody is.
What you need
For the mushrooms (serves 2)
- 250g chestnut mushrooms. Firmer and more flavour than white button ones. A mix of whatever's on offer works too.
- 1 tbsp olive oil. Just the one, for now. More on why later.
- 25g butter. Goes in at the end, not the start - it burns if it's in the pan for the whole browning bit.
- 2 garlic cloves, or three if you ask Eesha. I don't argue with teachers.
- 2 sprigs of thyme, if you've got them
- Salt and black pepper - but not yet
- 2 thick slices of sourdough, plus a little butter for spreading
For the creamy bit
Three things that turn fried mushrooms into a sauce you'd happily drink. Please don't drink it. Lara would. Mainly to see the look on Ayden's face.
- 75ml double cream. It can bubble without splitting, which single cream can't promise.
- A squeeze of lemon juice. Cuts through the richness. The Spanish serve lemon on the side for exactly this.
- 2 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley
Going lighter? Reduced-fat crème fraîche works instead of cream - just warm it through rather than boiling it hard.
Kit
- A big, wide frying pan - around 30cm. The most important thing on this list.
- A sharp knife and a chopping board
- Kitchen paper for wiping the mushrooms
- A wooden spatula or spoon
- A garlic press, or a fine grater
- A toaster or a grill
How to make garlic mushrooms
Step 1 - Wipe and slice
- Wipe the mushrooms with damp kitchen paper and trim the very ends of the stalks.
- Slice them about 5mm thick, all roughly the same, so they cook evenly. Leave tiny ones whole.
Wipe or wash? Chefs have argued about this for decades. A quick rinse won't ruin them - the water cooks off - but wet mushrooms take longer to brown. If they're not muddy, wipe. Life's short.
Step 2 - Brown them hard, and leave them alone
- Heat the oil in your widest pan over a medium-high heat until it shimmers.
- Add the mushrooms in one layer. If they don't fit, do two batches. There's not mush room for argument. That was rather funghi, I thought.
- Don't touch them for a full minute. Then toss them every 30 seconds or so, for 6-7 minutes, until they're golden and have shrunk by about half.
- Don't salt yet. And don't add more oil - they'll drink the first lot, then give it back.
Wide pan, hands off, salt last. Mushrooms are mostly water. Crowd them or salt them early and that water floods out, so they stew instead of fry. Give them room and time and they go golden and meaty. Treat them like a teenager on a Saturday morning. Leave them be and they'll come round.
Step 3 - Butter and garlic, last
- Turn the heat down to medium. Push the mushrooms to one side and drop the butter into the gap.
- Crush the garlic straight into the butter and add the thyme. Cook for about a minute, until it smells amazing and is only just colouring at the edges.
- Stir it all together and now season with salt and pepper.
I crush mine with our garlic crusher, which comes with a free silicone roll-tube peeler - so the skins are off before you've finished complaining about them. No press? Grate it on the fine side of a grater. Here's the knife, grater and press showdown if you want the whole story, and a closer look at that little green tube.
Step 4 - Cream, lemon, parsley
- Pour in the cream and let it bubble for 1-2 minutes, stirring, until it thickens enough to coat the mushrooms.
- Take the pan off the heat. Add a squeeze of lemon and most of the parsley.
- Taste. More salt? More pepper? A bit more lemon? Now's the time.
Oliver would like it noted that a pinch of chilli flakes here is "not optional, it's essential". Oliver would put chilli in a trifle. Ignore Oliver.
Step 5 - Toast and pile it on
- Toast the bread while the cream bubbles. Get it properly golden - pale toast goes soggy.
- Butter it lightly, then pile the mushrooms on with every drop of the sauce.
- Scatter over the last of the parsley and eat straight away. Garlic mushrooms on toast wait for no one.
Fork optional. Speed essential. Erin is already in the room. She heard the toaster.
If it goes wrong
Grey, soggy and swimming? The pan was crowded, they were wet, or they were salted too early.
Fix: turn the heat up and keep going - once the liquid boils off, they'll still brown. Next time, a wider pan or two batches, and salt at the end.
Garlic tastes bitter? It went in too early and burnt.
Fix: garlic goes in for the last minute only, on a medium heat, into butter. It's done when it smells good, not when it's brown. Eesha has made this point. Twice.
Greasy? You added more oil when the pan looked dry.
Fix: raw mushrooms soak oil up like a sponge, then give it back once they collapse. Hold your nerve with one tablespoon.
Sauce too thick, or no sauce at all? It bubbled too long, or the mushrooms gave off very little liquid.
Fix: a splash of water or a little more cream, and stir. Thirty seconds and it's back.
Tastes of not much? Under-seasoned, usually.
Fix: more salt, more pepper and another squeeze of lemon. A tiny pinch of smoked paprika is very Spanish. Chilli flakes are very Oliver.
Soggy toast? The bread was pale, or it sat under the sauce too long.
Fix: toast it darker than you think, butter it, and pile the mushrooms on at the very last second.
Swaps, sides and leftovers
Once you've nailed the basic method, it's yours to fiddle with. Lara says these mushrooms "look like little umbrellas having a bath". She means it as a compliment. I think.
- A handful of spinach stirred in with the cream wilts in seconds and makes it feel healthier than it is.
- Smoked paprika or chilli flakes on top for a bit of heat.
- Skip the toast and spoon them over a steak or a chicken breast.
- Add a poached egg on top and call it brunch.
- Got a log of the freezer herb butter? Swap a coin of it for the butter and garlic in step 3. Same job, less chopping.
- Pile them onto a crunchy, squidgy loaf instead of toast. Garlic on garlic. Eesha approves. Her breath does not.
Word association with Ayden over these: he said "mushroom". I said "fun guy". He said that's not how the game works. Still undefeated.
If two cloves felt timid, try the chicken that uses forty of them. Eesha calls it "ambitious". She means it as a warning.
Leftovers are rare in our house, but if you have some: cool them and get them in the fridge within two hours, then reheat until steaming hot all the way through - the Food Standards Agency's advice on leftovers is clear on both. Loosen the sauce with a splash of water. They don't freeze well once the cream's in.
So, the whole thing in one breath: wide pan, hands off, garlic last, cream, lemon, toast. That's how you get creamy garlic mushrooms that are actually golden, not grey.
And if they vanish before you sit down, check for crumbs on the tiara. There will be crumbs on the tiara.
Now go and cook something.
