Porcini Mushroom Sauce

Plan Z Phase: This is a Z3 (ZReboot) recipe.

Porcini mushrooms are not often available fresh outside of Italy. So you’re likely to buy dried ones. Don’t worry. They will work great. Demi-glace is one of those things that usually only foodies know about, but it’s super easy to use and makes a deep-flavored sauce in a flash. They do all the work for you. You just melt it and maybe add some water. Stir and voila.

This sauce can be served on steak, chicken, roast beef or even a full-flavored fish like sea bass or halibut. A splurge for sure. Plan Z offers you comfort food and even luscious gourmet offerings.

Servings: Serves 4

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup of porcini mushrooms
  • ¼ cup of ruby port
  • ½ cup of water
  • 1 Tbl of olive oil
  • 1 Tbl of butter
  • 3 Tbl of finely diced shallots
  • ½ cup of prepared beef or beef/veal demi-glace
  • sea salt and ground black pepper (to taste)
  • 2 Tbl of butter
  • Whisper of cayenne (optional)

Instructions:

First thing is to prep the mushrooms. I do this early in the day. In a small bowl, just add the mushrooms with the water and port. Let them soak. If you can’t do this early in the day, you’ll need a good 30 minutes. They need to soften.

Drain the mushrooms and coarsely chop them.

In a saute pan add the olive oil and the butter. Put in your mushrooms and your shallots. Saute on medium until the shallots are loosened and the liquid begins to dissipate from the mushrooms. Stir often. Add the prepared demi-glace and stir. Mine comes as a gel so I scoop out what I need and just add water to the pan. Keep stirring til it melts. Sometimes it comes frozen with the water already in it and you might just have to thaw it. All brands are different. Just follow the instructions on the container.

Season with salt and pepper. Taste to make sure the mushrooms are done to your liking. The sauce will be glossy and fairly thick. Then turn OFF the heat. Add the rest of the butter to give it even more richness. Stir to incorporate. Decide if you want to add a whisper of cayenne. I do it just to give the flavor a bit of brightness. Not spicy heat.

Serve over your protein.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

You can also make this sauce with a variety of mushrooms. You can use shiitake, cremini, morels, portabella or any other woodsy mushroom. Even button mushrooms will work well. Or a combo.