25 Nov 2025
Elena Hogg, founder of local culinary company FOOD by Elena, braces for the onset of winter with warming mushroom dishes…
Unless, like my children, you are immune to the cold and go about in T-shirts no matter the season, you will have felt the sudden plummet in temperatures this week with a shiver and an audible “Brrr”.
The air feels all the more biting after the unseasonal warmth of the first half of this month, which lulled us into a false sense of security. But there’s no more denying it: autumn is almost over and winter is on its way.
Alongside this bitter realisation (pun intended) comes a yearning for food that’s warming and comforting, like a casserole of glistening, fat butterbeans with chunks of chorizo that bequeath their paprika-infused oil to the dish, painting everything autumnal-orange. Or slow-cooked lentils with kale and celeriac spiked with a fiery mix of ground cumin, mustard seeds and black pepper to keep your inner embers aglow.
One ingredient keeps me coming back for more at this exact point in the year, when the crunch of autumn leaves underfoot gives way to the crunch of frost.
Mushrooms. They are the epitome of damp, shortening days and steaming hearthside suppers, and although I don’t have a hearth, mushrooms make me feel like I do. From creamy, herb-flecked mushroom pasta to a slick, garlicky pile of mushrooms on toast, they instantly transport you to the gastro equivalent of deep hibernation (without the starvation part).
And best of all is mushroom risotto, with its umami hit and soft, satisfying bite. I’ve yet to find a recipe, though, that tells the truth about how long it takes to make and just how much stirring in of liquid there is. The most recent recipe I came across allowed just 25 to 30 minutes to achieve the ideal result, but I find that double this is the minimum.
This amount of stirring may seem tedious at best, but I find that if I actively assign this time to ladling and mixing, then I don’t resent it. I listen to the radio or a podcast and it ends up being a very pleasant hour of my day indeed.
I recently made a mushroom risotto for a supper club and used lots of sage from the garden. Mushrooms lend themselves well to a good number of herbs, like thyme, oregano and tarragon, but none complements the mushroom’s earthiness as well as sage does, in my view.
To maximise sage-iness, I added a sprig to the pan of chopped mushrooms right from the start, letting it infuse into the cooking oil and mushrooms alike. I also immersed another garden sprig in the stock as it simmered, so that each ladleful imparted sage flavour as it was absorbed into the rice grains. The result was heady and savoury and more-ish.
For added fanciness, because part of me wrongly felt a mushroom risotto wouldn’t make enough impact, I made parmesan tuiles to adorn each bowl.
I don’t like to admit how simple these are to make, because surely they can’t be fancy if they’re so easy? But they did add another whack of umami and a little crunch to an otherwise soft-textured dish.
All you need to do is grate some parmesan and sprinkle onto a lined baking sheet in little disc-shapes about the size of a ginger biscuit (or bigger if you fancy).
Make sure you leave a few centimetres between them, although if they do touch as they melt and spread, it’s easy enough to separate them with a knife after they’ve cooled and hardened.
Sprinkle with herbs, paprika or pepper if you feel inclined and bake for five or six minutes at 190 degrees fan till they’ve turned golden and are bubbling temptingly. If you keep them in an airtight container separated with kitchen paper, they’ll stay crispy for a couple of days, so you can even make them in advance. Nothing fancy about it, really.
I can’t go without mentioning another firm favourite in my house, though by ‘house’, I mean the two adults that live here because the children still won’t touch mushrooms for all the Robux in the world. In short, it’s eggs, mushrooms and spinach, which sounds extremely mundane, but is one of those dishes that combines simple ingredients, unctuous indulgence and high levels of nutrition.
And the gleaming egg yolks bring a little sunshine to the season’s greyness.
Fry off a punnet or two of mushrooms (any kind at all that you fancy) adding some salt, black pepper and garlic. Ideally use a frying pan with a lid, as you’ll need it later. Cook the mushrooms on a medium heat. After a few minutes, they’ll release their water, but keep frying till it’s all evaporated and the edges of the chopped mushrooms start to catch.
That’s when they get seriously tasty.
At this point, add a few handfuls of young spinach leaves, nestling them into the mushrooms a little. As they just begin to wilt, grate over some nutmeg, then crack a couple of eggs onto the mushroom and spinach bed, maybe making a shallow dip with the back of a spoon to tip the eggs into. Season with salt and pepper, then cover with the lid – or some foil if you don’t have one – so the eggs can steam-cook.
This takes about five or six minutes, or a little longer if your bed of mushrooms and spinach is quite thick. Once cooked, serving up is a little tricky, but tell yourself from the outset that this dish is far more about simple pleasures than presentation. If the eggs are in one piece by the time they land on their plates, you’re winning. And if they don’t? Just whisk up another six eggs, add the whole lot back into the pan and cook until set. As they say, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
