What is a foodie? Slow cooked Portobello mushrooms.

West or northwest 4 or 5, becoming variable, mainly southwest 3 or 4.

Slight.

Occasional rain.

Good, occasionally moderate.

Yesterday I was on the bus for one hour. One of my fellow passengers clearly had more than one drink and somehow he was angered by “foodies” (might have something to do with the fact that from tomorrow on we have a local food festival so I might not cook a lot)

He was in full flow. I lost count how many times he mentioned f***** hipsters and wan****s and sneered at foodies. But he also insisted that “foodies” eat every day like kings. And this left me puzzled.

The truth is I am a foodie but I am not what you think a foodie is. Maybe no foodie is what you think they should be. Maybe I am not really a foodie.

I get up in the morning, stumble into the shower and my whole connection to food is “coffee”. Buckets of it. I stumble into the kitchen and get my fix. Then I remember food. Some days I get a bowl of oats and fruits and sit down at a table, on other days I munch on something while standing up and looking out of the window. And wonder what I am doing there. There are also days when I open the fridge, look at some slightly curling slices of cheese, close the fridge and think: "I am not eating that shit" and after an hour on the tube/bus gobble down an even worse shit in the shape of a Mars bar. However, if I happen to wake up at 5am I just might want to experiment with a perfect omelette. What else can you do at this time of the day?

And the same pattern follows throughout the day. But one thing is for sure: No day passes when I don’t want to cook something for myself. Cooking, not eating, is for me an exercise in love. Love for the people I care about and of course love for myself. You come home after a day of work and find peace while watching the telly, doing gardening, connecting with friends on facebook, play with your children, run a few miles, paint your nails.....it is ultimately what makes you keep your sanity. My sanity is cooking. It is not about food!

I had a few years ago a holidays of dreams. My husband was working very hard, was barely there during the year and decided to treat his family a holiday with every luxury you can dream off. We spend three weeks in France, going from Michelin star hotel to another. There was not one minute which was not cared for if we wished to have it. After 3 days I hated it. I did not want to have the best food 24/7 delivered to me, I wanted to prepare a cheese sandwich for the people I loved. Even if it was not great. I am not blaming him. He wanted to give me time out. Time to relax. But I missed the cooking bit.

I eat health-ish, sometimes not so. I don’t buy ready made meals. And sometimes I don’t need to feed myself. But I would still cook. Even if it is something for the next day. And it doesn’t have to be time consuming. Could be just a home made mayonnaise, top up my salted lemons, prepare the starter for tomorrows bread, or cook slowly mushrooms for a Portobello mushroom burger.

A well done Portobello mushroom burger is so excellent that I would swap it in 99% of cases for a beef burger. I actually get a bit obsessed by it and make my own bap (see here) and made in the past with great success my own “Kraft style cheese” (maybe I share that recipe in the future). And it is of course perfect for the BBQ season; just bring your own”burger”. However just popping the raw mushroom on the grill is no good. In order to get most out of it you need to slow cook it before. In fact, you ought to slow cook many mushrooms. They keep in the fridge for a few days and you have always a quick ingredient, either for pasta or in an omelette, topped with a poached egg or goats cheese, baked in a pastry or just on bread. You can even use it as a pizza “base” by filling it with tomato sauce and mozzarella. It is initially not a cheap dish, since you probably spend one bottle of olive oil. But first of all you can decant the oil (when it is cold) back into the bottle and continue to use it for many more mushrooms; and second it makes a tasty oil for all kind of BBQ marinades. Just keep it in the fridge to prolong its life.

Slow cooked Portobello mushrooms

1 Portobello mushroom, but while you are at it, why not make more? Ideally you take as many as fit in your oven proof dish, so they sit snug and tight but in one layer.

1 bottle of olive oil

Some rock salt

Garlic if you want

Thyme if you have

1 or two dried porcini mushrooms if you want to gild the lily

Preheat the oven to 80C-100C

Lay the mushrooms stem side up in one layer into your oven proof dish. Tuck all the other ingredients next to it (no need to soak the dried mushrooms if you use them); and pour the olive oil over it, so they are ideally at least 90% submerged. Make sure you fill the gills as well. Put into oven and cook for 2 hours so all the water has been driven out of them. Turn after 1 hour if they are not fully submerged. If they turn too brown after one hour, reduce the temperature.

Lift them out with a slotted spoon, drain over a bowl and catch the oil. Pour the oil back to the other oil.

If you already know what you want to do with then, e.g. take to a BBQ or make a burger out of them, just add your favourite BBQ spices or at least pepper and salt. Put in the fridge where they will sit happily for a few days.

When you are ready to use them, just put them in a hot pan without oil (either sliced or whole for a burger or onto the grill) and heat through and char slightly.

Pour the cold oil back into the bottle and keep in the fridge for your next batch.

Of course you can experiment with the poaching ingredients. Or add a few drops of “liquid amino”  or a few drops of truffle oil (macaroni cheese with truffled Portobello mushrooms? Sounds like something I might try if the weather gets colder).

Go one, love yourself. Do a bit of light cooking.

Oh, and by the way: Never ever tell a foodie that you feel afraid to invite him for dinner because his standards are so high and he is a much better cook. It saddens him tremendously (well, it did sadden me when I heard it far too many times. Yes, I know, it was supposed to be a compliment but I felt “punished”). If he wants perfect food he goes into an excellent restaurant. Dont deprive him of your love you show through cooking.

Update. A personal joke. My answer to your vid, K.