October 23, 2010: Fancy mushrooms and spinach on toast

I’ve been getting quite enthused with the home-cooked weekend breakfasts lately, so I was more than happy to take charge of this month’s calendar recipe – a mushrooms on toast dish that, with its truffle oil and fancy feta, wouldn’t look out of place on most cafe menus.

It’s all pretty simple – pop some bread in the toaster, do a little bit of pan-frying, add a few toppings and you’re done. And it’s well-worth the minimal effort – the rich, chunky mushrooms kept us going for hours and were set off by the earthy truffle oil and salty fetta. Having some good bread is important - we’d gone to the trouble of grabbing some fresh bread from the newly re-opened Filou’s Patisserie and I think using supermarket bread would have greatly reduced our enjoyment.


Sauteed mushrooms on toast with baby spinach, fetta and truffle oil

3 cups mushrooms, cut into chunky pieces
4 slices of fresh wholegrain bread
2 cups baby spinach leaves
4 tablespoons fetta
2 tablespoons white truffle oil
2 tablespoons flat-leaf parsley, chopped
1 teaspoon sea salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground black pepper
3 tablespoons vegetable oil


Saute the mushrooms in the vegetable oil over high heat, until they’ve softened and started to caramelise. Season with salt and pepper.  Pop the bread in the toaster when your mushrooms are nearly cooked – don’t leave it too late or else your spinach will wilt away to nothing.


Add the spinach and parsley to the mushrooms and fry for a minute or so, until they start to wilt. Remove everything from the heat.

Arrange the toast on a plate. Toss the mushrooms mixture over it and crumble the fetta on top.

Lightly drizzle with the truffle oil and season with extra black pepper.