Raw mushroom salad

Unfortunately, there are no competitions for “most unappetising blogpost title”, or I would just have won a million pounds. Perhaps I should have lured you in with promises of cheese and bacon and steak before revealing the truth.

Having managed the feat of following a week’s holiday with a weekend at my parent’s house, I was in need of something other than cheese and bacon and steak. Starting days with a full cooked breakfast and concluding them with a massive fish and chip dinner is all very well when you’ve got “climb three mountains” scheduled in between them, but my day-to-day office is somewhat devoid of mountains. The need for some relief from serious food coincided with this unexpectedly pleasant weather – unexpected in the sense of “shit my fridge is full of autumnal ingredients” – and resulted in me thinking of raw salady things.

This is a very pared-back version of this salad, which I’ve made before and would strongly recommend if you fancied something with a bit more variety in, or if you were cooking for more than one. This has a certain elegance all on its own, though, which I rather like.

A couple of notes on ingredients - you can really use 20g of whichever soft herbs take your fancy, although I do recommend using parsley as one of them. Chestnut mushrooms are my second favourite (after flat field ones, which wouldn't work here), but you could use normal white ones. And I hadn't had pecorino in ages, hence using it here, but any parmesan or other hard, strong, cheese would work well. It's just seasoning, really, so do make sure it's quite a salty one.


Raw mushroom salad

100g chestnut mushrooms
½ lemon
1 tbs olive oil
Salt
10g (ish) of parsley
10g (ish) of dill, or another soft herb like tarragon or basil
25g pecorino or parmesan

Thinly slice the mushrooms. In a largeish bowl, juice the lemon, and whisk in the olive oil and a decent pinch of salt. Tip in the mushrooms and stir very well, until each slice is coated in liquid. Leave for 30 minutes to an hour (or more, if you really want to), stirring occasionally to make sure no slices are sitting in the dressing at the bottom for too long.

Finely chop the herbs and shave (i.e. peel very thin slices off with a vegetable peeler; if your cheese is hairy then start thinking about alternative dinner options) the cheese.

When you want to eat, stir the herbs through the mushrooms and place in a flat serving dish. Scatter the cheese shavings artistically over the top.
You’ll probably want some crusty bread to go with this, and/or some extra salad leaves.