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Welcome to our new bonus series of Ruthie's Table four.

It's September.

Feels like we're all sharpening our pencils and coming back to school after a warm, beautiful summer, and I'm here with Sean Owen and Joseph Travelli are executive chefs at the River Cafe.

Do you want to tell us about the ingredients that are coming in?

The ones who were saying hello to the ones we're saying goodbye to you.

It's the stereotypical cook's favorite time of year.

I think pretty much.

Yeah, we're going into the chef season now what we were like autumn?

I guess harvest and mushrooms are a kind of the staple of September.

I think they're so amazing and they're right slap bang start in season now.

Definitely that when I came back from holiday is the first and I went in the kitchen.

It was the first thing.

It's like, Oh, they're porcini.

So on this episode we're going to talk about porcinion.

Let's just start from the very first thing, which is how to get one in the country.

Would you tell somebody to pick one.

You're probably best finding your local mushroom.

It's not easy to get them, you know.

Funnily enough, yesterday I found myself walking past the vegetop of an old supplier of ours, so you know, I won't say hello, and obviously I'm like, it's this time of year, you know, what about all these mushrooms used to bring us?

You know, because we're in London, we're brilliantly placed because last year we had the amazing porcini from Sweden a lot or from Scotland we get them, or from Italy, you know, or they're supposedly at least through Italy and you know also from the East.

They're all wonderful, but obviously the best are the local ones that you get the fast.

And he said that he can't buy them so much anymore because the people that used to go picking them are now older and he has this hard work, you know, because everyonthing's it's expensive, but actually because there's not much in it, you've got to get up really early.

You're competing with all these people that are just going to pick porgini's because they want it anyway, like you know, we buy a day off.

But the old days of someone.

Arriving with a car full of twenty kilos of mushrooms, he said, it doesn't happen anymore.

And that's not because the nature's.

Changed, it's just the lady used to go to Wimbledon, common didn't she coming with the porcini?

And then we were always like, well, let's get her followed.

We should follow her so you can find that where she's gay because we have a chef who and she wouldn't leave the trail because any reputable mushroom picker is not going to.

Let anyone know.

Well, basically we're telling people all about portuini, but they probably can't get them.

I think you could get them where I grew up.

You should buy them, like you can buy them, you know, it's not impossible.

Yeah, you can come and eat them with the River Cafe.

Yeah right, yeah, yeah.

You're supposed to not pick any mushrooms unless you really know what you're doing.

Yeah, so let's talk about what we're cooking.

But were you cooked to know with the portuini?

So I had them on the menu three times.

I had them thinny lives and raw on top of the beef carpaco this season with olive on and lemon and a bit of fresh parmesan shaved on top.

I had them slow cooked down to a.

Real sludge, really strong, slow cooked down with pappadelli, fresh pappadelli, and then I had them on with the grouse roasted whole with the burrello brescata.

So you could have a three course.

But for the home cook somebody who might be listening at home, what do I do when I get them home?

How do I clean a.

P I would say, if they've got a lot of mud on them, dried mud or the ground, do you want to resist the eyge to let them sit in a sink of water because you might think, oh, they're really dirty, I'll put them in the sink.

Well, what we do is we use a peeler to peel the to peel the stem and cut off the little tiny bottom bit where it's been attached to the ground.

And then we would get a damp cloth and wipe the cap with a damp cloth to get rid of any debris, and then look underneath it for any extra like dusty stuff, and then if it looks clean, I'd leave it at that if you cut it and they have tiny tiny holes in that can be maggots.

Quite often they're sold there's a couple cut in half, so you can sort of inspect them even we buy them like that.

Yeah, okay, so let's now think.

So we've got the porcini attached to its stem, we've wiped the top with the cloth, and we've peeled the stem with a peeler, and we've cut off the base.

Now what Well, now you have to work out what you want to cook.

I'd probably go for a roasted porcini because I just I think that it is just so exciting and so visual.

A great porcini could be the size of your hand, or bigger than that, and you could just cut it in half lengthways, in half or quarter if it's massive, or even leave.

It hole if you want to.

Hole's nice.

You can either cut the bottom of the mushroom and stick a sprig of time in or a sprig of garlic, and then just put it in a pan, a saucepan with some olive oil, salt and pepper and roast it in the oven til I'd probably say a good at least ten minuteserature or about two twenty DeGreasy for fifty f something like that.

I say, hot, hottish, you know the f that's really impressive.

I'm probably wrong.

Let's cook for ten minutes in a hottish oven and then let it sit for a couple of five minutes or so.

Maybe you put some tinfoil on it.

It goes really Yeah, that sounds really nice.

Then rest a bit, and then.

You could have a fresh cannellini bean.

So you can have it on a brisqueta.

You could have it with some presiuto.

It should be soft enough that in theory you could eat it with a fork or it's not hard to cut.

And it's very aromatic and perfumed.

It just goes with everything.

You can have it with fish, it with meat, have it on his own, co it for breakfast.

My dad used always Mate, they go out foraging them before we got up and then come back and make the scrambled egs with couch before school scrabbled eggs.

Yeah wow, but not every day, you know, this is like once in a while.

And I definitely it was like a normal kid, and I didn't like mushrooms like regular kid.

And then suddenly I like to remember a family a little bit gutted.

Oh no, there's like.

Another just share.

It's really nice when they go into things.

I love porcini cooked with potatoes, you know, over potatoes, when the juice goes in the potatoes, all the same would be.

You know, if I think of my favorite rosotto, it definitely would be porcini.

I think there is something about a fresh porcini risotti which is really just.

Magic porcini and potatoes.

Who've done it different ways the.

Way I like it best.

Here is cooked in this round tin, and I remember making this with Roads so well, and you'd have just very thin layer of potatoes, very thin layer of parsley which would always go brown by the end.

And somehow that kind of added to it.

And then a big layer of porcini and another layer of potatoes and a lad puccini and olive oil and just put in the oven like that baked.

I'll be absolutely honest.

It doesn't look exquisite, but it tastes absolutely magic.

I've made that dish.

I remember getting shown how to make it by Rose, and already I make it differently.

This is the great thing about having cooked with Rose is that everyone thinks that she had the way in the way they learned from her is the way, but she always changed it.

I think for me, the timing of porcini with polenta, this is one of my favorite's.

The way it's the reading is because I would separate the stem from the top, and I think because I sometimes question cooking them whole, because I think that the stem often tastes takes a different timing for the from the top, and so you might get the top which kind of melts and feels really good in that stem somehow separated, feels like a stem rather than to me part of the mushroom.

And so I I like to cut them separately, and then I would fry them in olive oil quite a while, and I'd do probably quite big pieces, you know, thick pieces.

But I think that then with the polenta, there's your moment to choose the butter, which I just love, and the parmesan.

So I would never myself sprinkle cheese if I was having a mushroom next to it, you know, I just stir probably the cheese and butter into the polenta and then have the mushrooms, you know, sort of next to it.

And yeah, for me, that is one of the great dishes.

But this is something about the smell.

It's so alluring, isn't it.

They're so kind of perfumed.

Well, Porcini.

How to find them, how to clean them, how to cook them, how to eat them, And we'll be back next.

Week with more.

Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair