I love mushrooms, though I know many who don’t. “It’s a texture thing.” “They grow in manure.” “They will poison me.” And I am sure you know my response (after, “Stop your whining and eat what’s put in front of you.”): more for me. The more mushrooms, the better.
At our farmers market, we have a vendor named Desert Pearl Mushrooms. They grow many varieties of beautiful mushrooms: several types of oyster mushrooms, as well as chestnut, shiitake, and lion’s mane mushrooms. They also sell grow-your-own kits. That’s sounds like fun, but I prefer to support local growers.
One day, I bought a mixed box of mushrooms from them and some baby bellas from the grocery store. A gorgeous combination, as you can see. Combining them with shallots and sage from Mark’s garden made a great combination to roast.
Those roasted beauties served over creamy, cheesy polenta were just wonderful. I did learn that the best mushrooms for this preparation are firm varieties like chestnut, shiitake, chanterelles, and the standards you find in the supermarket: baby bella, white button, and portobello mushrooms. This is a great vegetarian entrée, and can easily be made vegan — I hope you will give it a try.
~ David
Roasted Mushrooms with Sage over Creamy Polenta
Click the icon below to print the recipe!
Ingredients
- 1 pound mixed mushrooms, cleaned and trimmed
- 4 shallots, peeled and quartered lengthwise, stem end trimmed and intact
- 12 sage leaves
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, or other flavorful oil
- kosher salt, or sea salt
- freshly ground black pepper
- 1 cup polenta, white or yellow
- 2 cups light chicken or vegetable broth
- 2 cups milk, whole or lowfat
- 1/2 cup grated Parmigiano-Reggiano
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450°F.
- Place mushrooms, shallots, and sage leaves in a large bowl. Drizzle with the oil, then season well with salt and pepper. Toss to coat the mushrooms well. If it looks too dry, add a bit more oil and toss again.
- Line a rimmed cookie sheet with parchment. Add mushrooms and distribute evenly on the parchment, trying to keep everything to one layer. Place mushrooms in the oven and roast for 15-20 minutes, or until mushrooms are well cooked, browned and (depending on the variety) slightly crisp on the edges.
- Meanwhile, bring the broth and milk to a brisk simmer. Add polenta in a thin, steady stream while whisking. Continue whisking until it thickens — about 5-10 minutes — then add cheese and continue whisking until polenta begins to pull away from the sides.
- Divide the polenta among 4 plates, and top with roasted mushrooms. Grate on some additional cheese, if desired.
- Serves 4.
- Notes:
- • Try using rosemary, thyme, or savory in place of the sage. Or try a combination of herbs.
- • Want to make this vegan? Just use vegetable broth and, if you like, vegan cheese to make it creamier.
- • Depending on where you live, some kinds of mushrooms may not be available. This dish is wonderful using just a single kind of mushrooms, such as baby bellas.
© 2024 Copyright Cocoa & Lavender
Eha
April 23, 2022 at 4:36 amDavid – this is an absolutely perfect plate of food. Period. Full stop ! Love that you paired it with creamy polenta and were able to get such a variety of mushrooms. Love the use of sage also . . . I have more oft used other herbs but shall copy ! PLEASE go and buy one or more kits before your weather grows too warm to grow mushrooms at home – they should have a dark place – I grow mine in the garage. Have done so for 25-30 years, usually having a button and a portabella one going at the same time . . . the heavy, meaty texture of mushrooms picked and cooked five minutes later cannot be described !!! David – the seller does make his proper profit AND the left offer medium is perfect for Mark as top dressing in the garden – it will grow anything 🙂 !!
Eha
April 23, 2022 at 11:24 pmDavid – an addendum which may be interesting to some – for the next ten days I am attending on line the ‘Food Revolution Summit’ in the US – three hours daily if I can manage. At the moment am klistening to the very interesting dr William Lee talking about practical approaches to fighting Covid. His first food discussed was MUSHROOMS and, at the moment I am going back to Brussels Sprouts – its effects on flu injections et al. All of this is free if one catches it the first time around or one can buy the lectures. Only trying to pass on information . . . hugs !
Cocoa & Lavender
April 24, 2022 at 5:59 amSo glad you like the dish, Eha! We are lucky to have so many varieties of mushrooms available to us. Sadly, I have no place to grow mushrooms. They need dark and cook and those spaces just don’t exist in our home. We have no garage, no basement, no attic.
Glad you are enjoying the online seminars!
Maria Tilton
April 23, 2022 at 6:33 amI hit the send button before I was finished writing! You won’t regret growing your own mushrooms. ( I hope you and Mark are doing well.)
Cocoa & Lavender
April 24, 2022 at 6:00 amI wish we could, Maria — with no garage, basement, or other dark, cool space, it is rather impossible.
Wishing you and Tom the best. Keeping you in my thoughts and heart.
John / Kitchen Riffs
April 23, 2022 at 7:43 amThis looks terrific! Roast mushrooms have wonderful flavor, and pairing them with polenta is a great idea. Such a nice, simple dish. I tried growing my own mushrooms once (I used a kit), and they were good. Problem is we had them down in our basement (which in the winter, when we grew them, is nice and dark and cool — a perfect spot, we thought). But about the time we could harvest them, suddenly we had dozens and dozens of flies! Don’t know whether there was fly larvae in the kit, or somehow we brought it in from the outside (hard to imagine in winter, though), but we had a fun week getting rid of the flies. 🙂 So I just buy my mushrooms these days — much easier, and you can get excellent quality. Anyway, this is wonderful — thanks.
Cocoa & Lavender
April 24, 2022 at 6:02 amThe fly possibility alone will keep me from spore-ing, John! Yikes! Glad my farmers market people are good at this.
Marcelle
April 23, 2022 at 8:05 amDavid, this dish looks and rustic and full of comforting flavors!! I love mushrooms too, I wish we had local growers that offered an amazing variety of mushrooms like these. We’ve been on a real gardening kick, I’m going to look up the kits and see what that entails!! Gorgeous food!! 💖🍄
Cocoa & Lavender
April 24, 2022 at 6:03 amIf you have a nice, cool, bark place, growing mushrooms should be easy! So glad you like the recipe, Marcelle!
Christina | Christina's Cucina
April 23, 2022 at 12:39 pmI LOVE mushroooms AND polenta!!! This is absolutely my cup of tea!!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 24, 2022 at 6:03 amThe do make a great combination, don’t they?
sherry M
April 23, 2022 at 10:46 pmooh yes please. i love mushrooms and they look wonderfully tasty on that polenta! I’m coming over for dinner … a shame i’m about 20K klm’s away from your place 🙂
Cocoa & Lavender
April 24, 2022 at 6:05 am20K kilometers? That’s all that’s keeping you from coming to dinner? 🤣 Wish we could — would be a lot of fun!
Jeff the Chef
April 24, 2022 at 8:37 amBeautifully done David! I love mushrooms and I love that you roast some onions with them. Very envious of this farmer’s market you talk about, as well as your husband’s garden.
Cocoa & Lavender
April 25, 2022 at 8:22 amThanks, Jeff. Roasting the onions/shallots bring out the extra sweetness in them and is a perfect foil for the mushrooms.
Velva
April 24, 2022 at 9:29 amHi David, I am a big mushroom fan and have the pleasure of purchasing a variety of mushrooms at the Farmers Market. Love your mushrooms over a creamy polenta. Very nice!
Best,
Velva
Cocoa & Lavender
April 25, 2022 at 8:23 amThanks, Velva. I think we are very lucky to have mushrooms at our farmers markets!
Ronit Penso Tasty Eats
April 24, 2022 at 10:23 am“More for me” is my motto as well, but in this case, we’d have to share, as I’m very fond of mushrooms, and this dish is right up my alley! 🙂
Cocoa & Lavender
April 25, 2022 at 8:23 amI would always share with you, Ronit! 🙂
My Pinch of Italy
April 25, 2022 at 8:34 amOh my goodness, those mushrooms look fantastic and I simply love the combo with polenta.
This is a super dish!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 28, 2022 at 7:17 amThanks, Fiorenza. Polenta is such a great base for so many different types of toppings.
Valentina
April 25, 2022 at 8:09 pmI’m with Eha — perfect food! Creamy polenta and a delicious collection of mushrooms is soooo dreamy! 🙂 ~Valentina
Cocoa & Lavender
April 28, 2022 at 7:19 amWhat I really like about this dish is that, in addition to being a perfect combination, it’s incredibly easy. Almost no work at all, and lots of good return!
Raymund
April 27, 2022 at 8:10 pmWow those mushrooms! I am in love with that dish
Cocoa & Lavender
April 28, 2022 at 7:19 amI bet you have access to some really good mushrooms, Raymund! You should definitely try this!
2pots2cook
April 28, 2022 at 2:30 amThis is so beautiful ! Such an abundance of mushrooms and polenta! Heaven!
Cocoa & Lavender
April 28, 2022 at 7:20 amI really look forward to trying this with a variety of different mushrooms. Can’t wait for fall when they all come into the market.
John
April 30, 2022 at 1:29 pmSuch a delicious celebration of mushrooms, David. I adore them. The texture and variety of flavours, and yours are so perfectly teamed with polenta.
If you lived nearer I’d be leaving some saffron milk caps on your doorstep, as they keep popping up daily in the forest over the road from our house. So delicious! I dehydrated some and will be grinding them up to make mushroom salt. Such fun!
Cocoa & Lavender
May 1, 2022 at 6:49 amI bet those saffron milk caps would be amazing in this! A little jealous that you have them out your front gate!
Inger
May 4, 2022 at 9:01 pmThis so has me drooling David! We get some good mushrooms at some of the farmers markets too. I actually took a growing class once with my sister but neither of got any mushrooms out of the logs we inoculated.
Cocoa & Lavender
May 8, 2022 at 6:06 amYour story of trying to grow mushrooms confirms that I will not try. Especially when I get such good mushrooms from someone at the market. i’m glad you like the recipe, Inger!