Mushrooms sauté with rose pepper on toast

This is a versatile simplified version of something that probably you have enjoyed on toast at some point in your life. However, I tried my own modifications - as usual - and ended up with something completely different, surprinsigly good and rather tasty.

MUSHROOM and onion sauté is simply a fancy name for fried mushrooms (with or without onion) on toast. Despite mushrooms not making the top five list of choices for toast toppings in Britain, my late friend Peter would claim "this is a very British topping for your morning toast," whilst burning his toast until they looked completely black. He didn't bother with adding onions. He would sauté his favourite chestnut mushrooms a little bit in ghee, then quickly spoon them over the burnt toast. Judging by his face, you would think he was eating the most delicious and delicate food existing to-date in the whole world. Should I try to purposely burn the toast?

The following recipe for air-fryer mushrooms on toast looks pretty easy and it's a rather simple alternative to frying the mushrooms. Yet, with this one published by BBC Good Food as my inspiration, I went on to create my own.

The good thing about mushrooms is that you only need a few minutes to cook them. You can cook them in the morning, like I did, use part of them to make mushrooms on toast for breakfast and save the rest for a delicious mushroom sauté with a side of rice with rose pepper for dinner. Doesn't it sound delightful?

In one go you get the food ready for the day. There is no need to cook multiple times. I completely avoid spending lots of time cooking something that I will eat in five minutes or less. This is the reason why I started creating my own recipe modifications and inventions. I like experimenting with flavour combinations, too. And, creating my own experiements is a lot of fun. Just like a box of chocolates, you never know what you'll get at the end. That's part of the fun, indeed.

Mushrooms are a great example of a delicious and nutritious dish ready in a few minutes. Mushrooms are delicious, easy and quick to cook, and let's not forget that the humble mushrooms are the future of fashion, believe it or not!

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Mushrooms with rose pepper on toast

HAVE you ever wondered how recipes get their name? I never did, up to now. I must admit that sometimes one ingredient sounds just right to create a name. I picked "rose pepper" to give that element of importance that some dishes name sometimes have. Besides, rose pepper is a rather interesting and curious dried berry and not really pepper. It sounds like something you want to eat, though.

Rose pepper

I did some research, I have to admit. I wanted to actually learn more about the rose pepper profile and its role in the culinary world. Most precisely, why it sounds so deliciously good.

First, let's talk about how rose pepper tastes. At the start you taste a subtle sweetness which is followed by mild peppery notes, and then it finishes with delicate floral undertones. It seems that chefs appreciate rose pepper because it can enhance dishes without dominating other flavours. This was true in my mushrooms on toast experience; I could still taste the delicate flavour of the mushrooms. The best is to add rose pepper at the end of cooking or used it as a finishing spice. This way the berries will maintain their colour best. Otherwise, exposure to high heat can cause the pink hue to fade to a dull brown, which is exactly what happened to my rose pepper.

For my version of mushrooms on toast I used sliced mushrooms, I sauté them in some vegetable butter, I added dried roasted onions, thin slices of green olives with red pepper, and added freshly grounded rose pepper which was the magic ingredient making my mushrooms on toast so delicious and different.

I saved half of the sauté to make Mushrooms sauté with rice and rose pepper later for dinner. I added some rosemary whilst cooking the rice in the rice cooker. It was all delicious!