Mushroom Bourguignon

Ingredients

• ½ oz Dried porcini mushrooms
• 3 cups Low-sodium vegetable broth, hot
• 2 tbsp Extra-virgin olive oil
• 8 cups Cremini mushrooms, halved
• 2 Portobello mushrooms, cut in 1-inch pieces
• 2 tbsp Unsalted butter
• 1 Yellow onion, diced
• 3 Carrots, cut in coins
• 4 cloves Garlic, minced
• 2 tbsp Tomato paste
• 3 tbsp All-purpose flour
• 1 ½ cups Dry red wine
• 6 sprigs Fresh thyme
• 2 Bay leaves
• 1 tbsp Low-sodium soy sauce
• 1 tsp Kosher salt
• ¾ tsp Black pepper
• 2 lb Yukon gold potatoes, for mashing
• ½ cup 1% milk, warm
• ¼ cup Flat-leaf parsley, chopped

Method

1. Cover the dried porcini with the hot broth and leave them to soak. This is your stock, and it is the reason this tastes like a braise rather than a mushroom stew.
2. Heat the oil in a dutch oven over high until it shimmers. Add half the fresh mushrooms in one layer, salt them lightly, and leave them for 4 minutes without touching. Toss, cook 3 more, and remove. Repeat with the rest. Crowding the pan steams them and you lose the whole dish here.
3. Lower to medium and melt the butter. Add onion and carrot with a pinch of salt, cook 8 minutes until softening and browning at the edges.
4. Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook 2 minutes, stirring, until the paste darkens from red to brick. Sprinkle over the flour and cook another minute.
5. Pour in the wine and scrape every brown patch off the bottom. Simmer hard 5 minutes until it has reduced by about a third and no longer smells sharp.
6. Lift the porcini out of the broth, chop them, and add them to the pot. Pour in the soaking broth, leaving the last tablespoon of grit behind in the bowl. Add thyme, bay, soy sauce, the browned mushrooms, salt and pepper.
7. Simmer uncovered 25-30 minutes until the sauce coats a spoon. Meanwhile boil the potatoes in salted water until a knife slides in, then mash with the warm milk and a good pinch of salt.
8. Pull the thyme stems and bay. Taste for salt — a braise this dark usually wants a little more than you expect. Spoon over the mash and shower with parsley.

Notes

✨ The restaurant touch

Take the pot off the heat and swirl in one final tablespoon of cold butter until it disappears. That is a French finish called monter au beurre and it is the difference between a good sauce and a glossy one.

🧒 For the kids

Mushrooms cut small disappear into the sauce; cut large they are a texture some kids will not accept. Chop a portion of the mushrooms finely before browning and serve that side of the pot to them, over plenty of mash.

🌿 From the garden

Carrots, thyme and parsley all come out of a few square feet. Thyme in particular is a plant-once perennial that survives Ohio winters under a little mulch.

🥡 Leftovers

Better on day two, genuinely. Keeps 4 days refrigerated and 3 months frozen. Freeze the braise alone; mashed potatoes turn grainy after thawing.

Per serving

Computed from USDA FoodData Central values. A planning tool, not medical advice.