sunday suppers - mushroom bourguignon

I'm not much of a meat eater.  I'm not a vegetarian, by any means, but most of the time I'll gravitate towards vegetarian for seafood dishes when given the choice.  I call myself a flexitarian.

However, I'm married to the biggest carnivore around.  Hubby believes in "the more meat the better".

Luckily for me, Hubby is extremely easy going when it comes to what I make.  I think he's just grateful that he's not the one who has to do most of the cooking.  Since I'm in charge of the kitchen, I feed my poor meat-loving man many vegetarian meals.  Poor, poor man.

This dish, however, may have converted even Hubby into a non meat eater.  The mushrooms are "meaty" enough that they can be the star of the dish.  And if you simmer anything in red wine, it will most definitely taste heavenly.

Make it.  You won't even miss the meat.  Promise.

MUSHROOM BOURGUIGNON
adapted from Smitten Kitchen

The hardest thing about this dish was all the chopping.  There are A LOT of mushrooms in it, and add in the carrot and onion and you've got yourself a good 30 minutes of chopping ahead of you.  Chopping aside though, this dish is super easy to make, and would even make a good weeknight meal.  The original recipe calls for pearl onions to be added as well as the yellow onion.  I couldn't find any at my regular grocery store, and I didn't want to go hunting around for pearl onions, so I omitted them and it was still fantastic.  However, this would be a more traditional bourguignon with addition of pearl onions, so if you have them (or can find them), add them.

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter, softened
2 pounds mushrooms, in 1/4-inch slices (save the stems for another use) (I used a mix of portobello, crimini, and button mushrooms)
1 carrot, finely diced
1 small yellow onion, finely diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup red wine
2 cups vegetable broth
2 tablespoons tomato paste
12 teaspoon dried thyme
1 1/2 tablespoons flour
Egg noodles, sour cream, and chives, for serving

Start by heating one tablespoon of each of olive oil and better in a Dutch oven (or any pot) over high heat.  Add the mushroom and cook until they begin to darken, but not yet release any liquid (about 3 or 4 minutes) and then place in a separate bowl.  I found that I didn't have enough room in my Dutch oven to do this, so I cooked half of the mushrooms in a separate frying pan, which worked well.

Add the carrots, onion, thyme, and some salt and pepper to the (now empty) Dutch oven and sauté over medium hear for 10 minutes, or until the onions are slightly browned.  Add the garlic and cook for just one more minute.

Add the wine and scrape any burnt bits off of the bottom on the pan.  Turn the heat all the way up and reduce the wine by half.  Add the tomato paste, vegetable broth, and mushrooms (and any mushroom juices).  Once the liquid starts to boil, turn down the heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes, or until the mushrooms are very tender (mine took the full 20 minutes).

Mix together the remaining 1 tablespoon of butter with the flour with a fork and stir into the stew to thicken it.  Let it simmer for 10 minutes.  If the sauce is still too thin, boil it until it reaches the right consistency.  Add more salt, pepper, and thyme, as needed.

I served the bourguignon over egg noodles with a dollop of sour cream and some chopped chives and paried it with some cheddar and green onion biscuits, a ceasar salad, and the rest of the bottle of red wine that I used in the recipe.  It was gobbled up by the carnivores, flexitarians, and vegitarians alike.