After a hearty lunch that included tacos de lengua and carnitas, meat was out of the question for dinner. I got mushrooms and potatoes. And dill. Scallions were already in the fridge.

Should i mention that our AC has been broken for several days already and i started to master the art of stovetop cooking?
Luckily i have this 14″ skillet, a plancha practically, and my workhorse.
1lb of small oyster mushrooms, stems cut off. 1.5lb large fingerlings sliced 1/4″ thick crosswise, tossed with 3tbs olive oil, mushroom caps added and everything mixed gently but thoroughly.
On heated skillet the mixture goes. Med heat, covered. Stir every 10mins to brown evenly. In the meantime slice a bunch of scallions, and whatever herbs you fancy – i used dill but cilantro would be cool or, now i see it – tarragon! When potatoes are ready add a splash of posh white wine vinegar, and herbs. A vegetarian heaven.

Nice recipe for meatballs in tomatillo (with some chipotle) sauce. Couple problems – the color of cooked sauce – on the pic it was pretty and clear. In reality it came out grayish, apparently from the juice leaking from meat. Possible remedy? Cook meatballs in stock and add the sauce at the end. Or even bake them?
Zucchini/corn/mushrooms side was ont he otehr hand excellent (Kennedy’s blue book). The only thing i’ll change for the next time is to start with mushrooms – i used tiny oysters when hers was an huilacoche dish.

Time to pull out the deep fryer.
I coated hon shimeji mushrooms with a beaten egg, let the excess to drip off and then coated mushrooms in masa harina and green japanese pepper shaking the flour off. 1 min in 350F – excellent stuff. Next time i’ll use the egg white only.
The coating for the shrimp was made with 1/3 cup of flour, 1tbs of chipotle, 1tbs of paprika, 2tsp of salt and some black pepper. 3mins in 350F. Next time – increase the amount of chipotle and salt. And raise the temp to 275F, for 2mins maybe? Still shrimps were excellent especially those heads on.

I was thinking about using a brown rice in paella for a long time. Couple of days ago i took a plunge.
Mushrooms are always a great companion to brown rice and i had some nice king oyster ones. And chorizo (in reality it was some sort of portuguese lomo instead of chorizo in a fridge).
King oysters responds well to brown first braise after treatment but i coudn’t decide how to cut them for an appropriate texture – the choice was among tearing into strings, cutting into rounds or dicing. And then i had an epiphany – duxelles of course!
I decided to soak the rice to shorten the cooking time. Didn’t help – it took the usual 50mins in 350F oven. Next time i will add the meat and mushrooms about 20mins before the finish. And the rice/water ratio should have been 1/2 not 1/1.75 (my standard brown rice formula) due to higher evaporation.

My brown rice of choice is Massa Organics though next time i might try some Lundberg – they have excellent rice mixes.

Didn’t know what i want for dinner so after looking at all the fish available i ended up with a piece of fluke. But then while leaving the counter i spotted a trout and changed my mind again – and left the store with deboned trout, oyster mushrooms and scallions.
The plan was to bake the fish en papillote and though the original recipe called for corn husks i forgot to buy them and used avocado leaves instead.

The fish was delicious but the mushrooms were lacking in texture. I will definitely make it again – though next time i won’t forget to get corn husks and use different mushrooms…. Maybe shiitakes though these might be too strong flavored for a delicate trout, or some king oysters, or how about this – beach mushrooms would be great or even enoki. Not sure about maitakes – maybe if i just brown them a little before…

Adapted from Jose Andres’ Made In Spain.

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Excellent. The changes i made to the original recipe – plump mature oyster mushrooms about 1/2lb torn in pieces. Skipped pine nuts – i think they’d muddle the texture of the dish. Plump green raisins were nice. Madeira. For the next time increase the amount of onion to the whole one.

Being russian puts one on a permanent hunt for recipes that could miraculously make cultivated mushrooms taste like those excellent wild mushrooms foraged back in childhood. You hope to discover some technique that tightens the flabbiness of button mushrooms to approximate the texture of porcini, and with a little help from dried cepes to trick your all senses into believing you’re eating a real stuff.
Well, tonight’s version was not bad at all. Used large white mushrooms sliced 0.5″, braised them with garlic in a lot of olive oil for about 10mins, then added dried porcini (0.5 oz) soaked in hot goat milk(100ml), including some milk and cooked more until all the liquid was almost gone. Shower of parsley and more olive oil.

Served on some excellent pumpernickel toast – welcome to russian bruschetta.