Baked mushrooms ‘Saint-Jacques’ style

By: Mike McEnearney
From: Real Food by Mike
Serves: 4
Photographer: Alan Benson

I love coquilles Saint-Jacques – plump and juicy scallops baked or grilled in their shells, in garlic butter with bacon, parsley and a drizzle of wine, and that lovely breadcrumb top. The flat mushroom is also the perfect vehicle for all of these wonderful flavours – particularly when it’s not scallop season. Look for the largest flat mushrooms you can find. Big portobello mushrooms, which are so juicy and fat, are perfect.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient
250g	butter, melted gently in a pan
3	garlic cloves, finely chopped
1/4 bunch	flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and finely chopped
1/4 bunch	thyme, leaves picked and finely chopped
8	large portobello mushrooms
125ml	white wine
250g	piece speck, cut into batons
120g	fresh breadcrumbs, (see Note)
	lemon cheeks, to serve

Method

Put the warm butter, garlic, parsley, thyme and a pinch of salt in a bowl and mix to combine.
Preheat the oven to 250°C. Line a baking tray with baking paper.
Place the mushrooms, upside down, on the baking tray and remove the stalks. Drizzle each mushroom with a tablespoon of white wine, then scatter with the speck batons. Spoon some of the garlic butter mixture into each mushroom cap. Place the mushrooms in the refrigerator for a few hours – the butter will set on top of the mushrooms and hold everything together.
When you are ready to cook, scatter the mushrooms with the breadcrumbs and bake for 7–10 minutes until the mushrooms are tender and the breadcrumbs are golden and sizzling. Serve with lemon wedges and a good grinding of black pepper.

Note

To make the fresh breadcrumbs, pop the bread in the freezer until hard, then grate it using a box grater. If you buy toasted breadcrumbs, when you bake your Saint-Jacques mushrooms they will toast too far and may catch and burn, while the fresh will just start to become golden and plump, absorbing all the lovely flavours.

Medicinal Benefit

Mushrooms contain ergosterols, which are converted to vitamin D when exposed to sunlight after harvesting. Vitamin D is crucial for maintaining normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus, which help strengthen bones. Mushrooms also have vitamins B2 and B3 (to help convert food into energy), selenium and potassium (to help balance bodily fluids), dietary fibre (for a healthy bowel) and phosphorus (to build bones and move nutrients into and out of cells).

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