Last week I saw a TV progamme featuring Ray Mears in some woods. Ray is the guy you often see on TV demonstrating survival techniques in jungles and other inhospitable places. Despite the unlikelyhood of me ever needing such skills (or remembering them should I need to) I find these programmes quite watchable.
The current series deals with how Ray thinks our distant ancestors lived in the woods thousands of years ago. Part of the programme dealt with mushrooms and to demonstrate he cooked a meal with some of the 'shrooms. Here's the recipe.
Mushrooms
Tomatoes
Garlic
Basil
Balsamic Vinegar
Olive Oil
Butter
French Bread
Finally, he used a teflon coated frying pan.
Now, call me picky but in a programme dealing with how our ancestors lived in the woods, I find much of the above a bit hard to swallow! One minute Ray was showing us how to cook acorns with a hot stone, the next he was frying mushrooms in olive oil and eating a baguette!
I'll give him the frying pan, maybe there was some other way to heat the food. Prehaps there was some early form of bread too (although I very much doubt it).
I don't know, but I can imagine that mushrooms, garlic and basil were around in these early days (although Ray himeself admitted there was no evidence that our ancestors used to eat mushrooms). But I'm reasonably sure Tomatoes came from South America a few hundred years ago, and as for olive oil, butter and balsamic vinegar!
Anyway, yesterday lunchtime found us at home with no plans for lunch, and I decided to try out Ray's recipe. It was bloody marvelous!
Fry the mushrooms and garlic in a little olive oil (I decided to be healthy and didn't use the butter) add the tomatoes, basil and a 'splash' of balsamic vinegar and continue cooking.
Serve on a fresh baguette and hey presto you have a healthy, tasty lunch.
Just call me Gordon Ramsey!
