Hi all. Could you please help me. I recently took my girlfriend to my fave italian. I had fungahi all' aglio for my starter and it was AMAZING Its her birthday next week and i am doin her a meal. I would love to make this as a starter but dont know how. All i know is the de_script_ion... Baked button mushrooms in a creamy garlic sauce served on toasted bruschetta. If anyone knows the recipe could you PLEASE help.. Thanks for reading this and i look forward to hearing from some one

Chris

Hi Chris,

For the bread, buy an Italian country loaf (pane Pugliese or pane Toscano) from an Italian deli shop or make a loaf by yourself following the recipe I have published time ago: “Make bread at home”. If you buy pane Toscano, bear in mind that it is usually made without salt, so in case you are going to use it, you probably need extra salt for seasoning. Slice the loaf and toast the slices over a griddle pan.

For the mushroom/garlic creamy sauce, things become a bit more elaborate because you really need to deliver big flavours if you want to make a great topping for the bruschetta. I will try to keep it simple and here is what I would do.

Buy some dried porcini mushrooms (dry ceps). You just need about 40g (1 1/2 oz) and nowadays you can find them in any supermarket. Take a glass jug, fill it with 1 pint of boiled water and put the dried mushrooms into it, to soak them for 20 minutes. When you put the mushrooms in the jug, give them a good stir using a fork (sometimes dried mushrooms have some grit over them and stirring will help to get rid of the grit, which will deposit in the bottom of the jug). After 20 minutes, carefully remove the soaked mushrooms from the jug; don't stir otherwise you will lift the sediment you have in the bottom. In the jug you will be left with a nice brown mushrooms flavoured water; filter the brown water through a very fine sieve (even better if you use a butter muslin) so you get rid of the sediment/grit and set the water aside. 

Next, squeeze the soaked mushrooms in kitchen paper to get rid of the water they have absorbed and then finely chop them. Also, chop one shallot and peel 3-4 cloves of garlic..

Now, take a heavy bottomed pan, melt a good knob of butter into it and sweat off the shallot, the cloves of garlic (crashed) and the chopped porcini mushrooms together (quantity of garlic is up to you, depending how garlic flavoured your sauce has to be). Watch you don't burn the garlic or the shallot; keep stirring with a wooden spoon and after 5 minutes deglaze the pan with the brown water, scraping all around with the wooden spoon. Reduce the liquid to half by simmering. Next, strain the pan content into a second small pan (to get rid of the solid matter), heat the small pan on gentle heat and add a couple of spoons of extra thick double cream. Stir until the cream is dissolved and simmer to further reduce the sauce to a syrup consistency. Finally season with salt and pepper. 

Now, using a non-stick skillet, sweat off some button mushroom (sliced) with butter. It should take only 3 to 5 minutes and don't season because you are going to add the creamy sauce, which was already seasoned. So, add the hot creamy sauce from the small pan into the skillet, stir and let it bubble for a couple of minutes if you think that it need to be further reduced. Last, remove the skillet from the heat, sprinkle with parsley and that's it; your bruschetta topping is ready. If you think that there is not enough garlic flavour in the topping, you may rub a clove of garlic over the toasted bread. This will add a big punch to the whole topping!

Good luck
Ciao

Hi there Federico.. THANK YOU SOOO MUCH for your help. My girlfriends birthday is coming up fast and i cant wait to supprise here with this amazing starter.. Your a star. I owe you one. I will let you know how it went.. Thanks again..

Chris