Simple But Delicious Confit Mushrooms

Recipe: Mushroom Confit Recipe »

Mushroom confit is a delicious way to preserve and cook mushrooms. If you love lusciously textured mushrooms then give this easy cooking method a try. Mushrooms can keep for 1-2 months once confited and it is the perfect way if you have an excess of mushrooms from foraging or if you have some mushrooms that need using up!

Freezing raw mushrooms isn't ideal because of the high water content of mushrooms and they often turn mushy once thawed. But that is where confit comes in! Confiting is a French method of cooking food in oil on a low temperature. It is super easy and all you do is slice the mushrooms, cover them in oil with garlic and then cover and bake in the oven on low heat! I swear once you try this mushroom confit once you'll make it again and again.

I made this batch of mushroom confit with some pine mushrooms or saffron milk cap mushrooms that we foraged. We ended up with a huge box of them and no way we could eat them quickly. But I've confited Swiss brown and regular white mushrooms too and they're all delicious!

10 Helpful Tips For Making Mushroom Confit

1 - For pine mushrooms I wash the mushrooms well because they have a lot of debris on them as foraged in pine forests. Be careful to not bruise the gills of saffron mushrooms, hold them by the top and stalk and wash. Touching the gills bruises them easily.

2 - Remove the stalk and then slice the mushrooms. I like to slice them around half a centimetre/0.2inch thick or so.

3 - I use a large cast iron pot with a lid for this and bake it in the oven to keep it cooking at a consistent temperature.

4 - You need to cover the mushrooms in oil but sometimes you will find that the mushroom slices float. Don't worry, around halfway through the cooking time the mushrooms will absorb the oil and sink to the bottom and will end up covered in oil for the second half of the cooking process.

5 - You don't need a large amount of mushrooms to confit. Try this method with a small amount of mushrooms. The oil and garlic absorb into the mushroom imparting such a delicious flavour. Whenever I make mushroom pizza I confit the mushrooms first.

6 - The time taken to confit depends on the amount of mushrooms. I have done this with a small amount of mushrooms (250g/0.5lb) and I have done this with a large batch of mushrooms. The largest amount of mushrooms I made took 1.5 hours while the smallest batch took 20 minutes.

7 - Ways to serve mushroom confit are: on toast with feta and parsley or coriander. You can also use them in a creamy alfredo pasta sauce or serve them atop mashed potato as a delicious side dish. Confit mushrooms are the best mushrooms to top pizza with too! They don't dry out when you put them in the oven and retain a luscious texture.

8 - Reserve the oil to cook with (keep it in the fridge).

9 - Make sure that the oil covers the mushrooms when you place it in an airtight jar. I used this jar to store my confited mushrooms and my tip is to line the mouth with some foil so that any oil that drips doesn't drip down the outside of the jar.

10 - Mushrooms that have been confited can last up to 2 months in the freezer or 1 month in the fridge. That way you'll have perfectly textured mushrooms always at the ready to add in salads or pastas. I love using mushroom confit for mushrooms on toast or in a Mushroom Risotto.

Mushroom Confit Recipe

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 1.5 hours

• 600g/1.3lbs mushrooms (I used saffron milk caps)

• 4 cups/1 litre/2.1pints canola oil (or other neutral oil)

• 6 garlic cloves, peeled, whole

• 2 sprig thyme

• 2 teaspoons brown sugar

• 2-3 teaspoons salt

Step 1 - Adjust your oven shelves to accommodate your pot and lid. Preheat oven to 90C/194F fan forced (very low). Wash and clean debris from mushrooms (avoiding touching the gills if you're cooking pine mushrooms). Remove the stalk and slice up to around 1/2 a cm or 0.2 an inch slices. Add the oil, garlic, thyme, brown sugar and salt to a large cast iron pot with lid and stir to combine. Add the sliced mushrooms and mix to coat with the oil.

Step 2 - Place the lid on and bake in the oven for 1.5 hours. During this time the mushrooms will cook down and submerge completely in the oil. Allow to cool until warm. Line the opening of a sterilised large pickle jar with foil and scoop the confit and oil into the jar. Make sure that the oil covers the mushrooms.

We've been eating these confited mushrooms for a few weeks now. For me Easter signals mushroom picking time and on the first day of the long weekend we went mushroom picking. Ever since we did a mushroom picking class a few years ago, Mr NQN loves foraging for saffron milk cap pine mushrooms. On Good Friday we headed to the Belanglo state forest (yes that one) with Teddy and Milo in tow. Dogs are allowed in state forests (not national parks) and we love doing things with them because they love being in nature so much.

What should have been a 1.5 hour drive took much longer because a lot of people were driving towards south Canberra and the South Coast. We arrived just after 3.15pm and we saw quite a few groups of people already mushroom picking while some were packing up, huge boxes of mushrooms procured. Mr NQN headed off with Teddy and Milo into the forest while I followed them for a bit but then fled back to the safety of the car. I find forests a bit scary (especially this one) and honestly I am not at one with nature. I stayed in the car, ate snacks and drank tea and read and watched videos. Milo ran back and forth between us wondering why I was in the car while Daddy was picking some strange mushroomy things.

Mr NQN ended up picking a large box around 1.5 kilos/3.3lbs of mushrooms. After checking the dogs for ticks we headed home. While I had intended to relax most of Saturday was spent confiting these mushrooms. We ended up with so many that all of my friends received some of the confit mushrooms to try. Laura was a big fan of these and wanted to make some once her supply ran out. And Mr NQN has promised to take her along the next time we go foraging!

So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever forage for things? Have you ever tried saffron or pine mushrooms?