Vegan Mushroom Gravy

Two separate mushroom jobs are going on here. Fresh mushrooms browned properly give you Maillard flavour and texture, and dried porcini give you concentrated glutamates that fresh ones simply do not have. Use both and you get a gravy that tastes like it came off a roast.

Ingredients

Makes about 450ml, four decent servings

• 15g (1/2oz) dried porcini mushrooms
• 300ml (1/2 pint) just boiled water for soaking the porcini
• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 300g (10oz) chestnut mushrooms, thickly sliced
• 1 banana shallot, finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, sliced
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh thyme leaves
• 1 1/2 tbsp plain flour
• 300ml (1/2 pint) hot vegetable stock
• 1 tbsp light soy sauce or tamari
• black pepper

Kit

• Wide frying pan
• Small bowl
• Fine sieve

Method

1. Put the porcini in a bowl, pour over the just boiled water and leave for 20 minutes. This liquor is the single most useful thing in the recipe, so do not tip it away.

2. Get the frying pan properly hot over a high heat, add one tablespoon of the oil and tip in the chestnut mushrooms in a single layer. Leave them alone for three minutes without stirring so they catch and colour on one side.

3. Toss them once and cook for another three or four minutes. They will release water, then that water will boil off and the pan will start to squeak and brown. That second stage is the one you are after.

4. Turn the heat to medium, add the rest of the oil with the shallot, garlic and thyme, and cook for three minutes until the shallot is soft and translucent.

5. Lift the porcini out of their liquid, squeeze them over the bowl, chop them roughly and add them to the pan. Strain the soaking liquor through a fine sieve to leave the grit behind, and keep it to one side.

6. Sprinkle the flour over and stir for two minutes so it toasts against the hot pan, then pour in the porcini liquor a little at a time, stirring hard, followed by the stock.

7. Simmer for 8 to 10 minutes until glossy and thick enough to hold a line on the back of a spoon. Finish with the soy sauce and plenty of black pepper, and taste before adding any salt.

Tips worth knowing

• Crowd the pan and the mushrooms steam instead of browning. Do them in two batches if your pan is small.
• Always strain the porcini liquor. There is grit at the bottom of the bowl and it will end up in your teeth otherwise.
• Soy sauce contains wheat. Use tamari instead and you lose nothing in flavour, though the flour still means this is not a gluten free gravy.
• A splash of the porcini liquor stirred into the mash or the roast potatoes is never wasted.

Keeping and reheating

Four days in the fridge, three months in the freezer. It thickens a lot when cold, so reheat with a splash of stock and whisk it back to a pouring consistency.

Questions people ask