George's Famous Mushroom Sauce Recipe

Following on from my previous post about preserving mushrooms, here is George's famous mushroom sauce recipe: (I used red wine not white, used fresh thyme not dried, and omitted the sherry.  The first time I had no mushroom ketchup and omitted that too but have since had some posted from the UK by George and it adds to the mushroomy flavour.  Should definitely not be replaced with tomato ketchup or worcestershire sauce: in my experience it is best omitted and no substitution made)

The other thing I did was use only about 1kg of mushrooms for the amount of fat recommended.

George says that this does not freeze well.  I have canned mine and will pronounce a verdict in a few months.  The other thing about this sauce is that it is very versatile: add some cream/sour cream and you have a fabulous pasta sauce or let it stay a little bit thicker and you can use it like a mushroom paste with a burger or on toast or bruschetta.  I reckon it would also be delicious in little toasted bread cases as a pre dinner nibble.

Mushroom Sauce
By George Timcke

Ingredients for 2 helpings

2 oz. (60g) butter
2 fl. oz. (60ml) olive oil
A medium-sized onion
6–7 oz. (about 250g) mushrooms
A clove of garlic
A pinch of curry powder (not paste) or freshly grated nutmeg
2 tsp. dried thyme
Option: a few pieces of dried ceps (porcini)
A glass of dry white wine
Option: 1 dsp. sherry vinegar
1 dsp. mushroom ketchup
About ½ pint vegetable stock
¼ cup flour
A little full-cream milk
Option: 1 tbsp. fresh chopped parsley

You will also need a square-ended wooden spatula and a medium-sized saucepan, ideally non-stick, with a lid.

Method
Prepare the vegetables first. Peel and very finely chop the onion. Peel and roughly chop the garlic. Wipe the mushrooms – do not wash or skin them if you can avoid it – then trim away most of the stalks and cut the caps into slices about an eighth of an inch thick (about 3 - 4 mm).

If dried ceps are available, cover half a dozen pieces with boiling water and leave them to soak for 10–15 minutes; then drain them (saving the water), squeeze them out in kitchen paper and chop them very small.

If you are using a vegetable stock cube, reconstitute it now, using the water in which the ceps were soaked, made up to three-quarters of a pint with boiling water.

Heat the butter and olive oil together in a suitable pan, and in them gently sweat the chopped onion, with a lid on, for 5–10 minutes, until it has softened and become transparent. Don’t allow it to brown. In the later stages, crush the garlic and stir it in with the onion, using the square-ended wooden spatula. Add the sliced mushrooms to the pan. Turn them gently in the fat until they are evenly covered, then replace the lid and sweat them for another five minutes or so. As soon as the mushrooms are all plainly stewing in their own juice, add the chopped ceps and stir them in. Put the lid to one side; it will not be needed again.
Now turn up the heat and cook the mushrooms briskly until all the free liquid has evaporated. A sudden, distinctive change to a much more appetizing smell will tell you when this has happened. It does not matter if some of the mushroom slices take a little colour at this stage. Towards the end, clear a space on the bottom of the pan; into this sprinkle the curry powder and dried thyme, and make sure that they cook a little in hot fat.
Turn down the heat and sprinkle in the flour, not all at once. Stir quickly so that it soaks up the loose fat and is distributed evenly throughout the mushrooms.
Cook the flour for 2–3 minutes, then add the vegetable stock, white wine, sherry vinegar and mushroom ketchup. Add enough stock to reduce the con¬tents of the pan to an acceptable sauce consistency. Check the seasoning.
Bring the sauce once and briefly definitively to the boil; then reduce it to a very gentle simmer and cook it thus, with the lid off, for 15 minutes or so, stirring occasionally.
Adjust the consistency from time to time if necessary with small additions of stock, and incorporate a little milk in the final stages to lighten the colour. Just before serving, stir in a tablespoonful of finely chopped fresh parsley if you have any.