Mushrooms on Toast

This is one of my mother's recipes - it starts with the simplest possible white sauce, and finishes with a really delicious, warming comfort food.

This used to be sooo good to come home to after walking home from school on a dark and wet October evening...

The recipe as presented will make two portions - it will serve two at once, or you can chill half the sauce to use the next day.

You will need...

For the basic sauce:

Plain flower - 50g

Butter or similar spread - 50g

Milk - 500ml or 400ml (see step 4)

Salt & pepper

A lot of elbow grease

To finish the dish, you'll need mushrooms and bread. I recommend a brown or wholemeal.

Equipment:

A large saucepan

A stirring thing

Sharp knife

Life is also easier with a measuring jug and basic kitchen scales.

First, slice your mushrooms.

I use 250g ordinary button mushrooms, supermarket basic label, but you can use any mushrooms you like.

The mushrooms do reduce dramatically during cooking, so there's no need to be fussy about cutting thing slices.

Set the mushrooms aside for later.

Put your saucepan on to heat, weigh out 50g of your buttery stuff, and drop it straight into the pan.

While the pan is heating, and the butter is melting, weigh out 50g of your plain flour.

When the buttery stuff is melted and starting to bubble, turn the heat down to about ⅔ of maximum, and sprinkle in some of the flour, stirring madly as you go. It's important for this recipe that you don't stop stirring - if things sit still too long, they could burn.

When the flour is all mixed in as smoothly as possible, add a little more flour and stir more.

Keep sprinkling and stirring until all the flour is mixed in - the mixture will end up as a dough-like paste, even a lump of play-doh - and keep moving it around and heating for another minute or two.

Once you have created your paste, it's time to add milk. Again, it is important to keep things moving in the pan.

The amount of milk you add depends on what you're going to add to the sauce. Mushrooms release a lot of water, so I compensate for that by only adding 400ml milk. If you're using dryer ingredients, such as cheese or pasta, then add 500ml milk.

Add the milk a splash at a time, and stir it into the paste.

Once it's as smooth as you can manage, add another splash and stir again.

Real chefs will tell you it's important to stir the mixture until it is creamy-smooth. In my experience, a few lumpy bits don't really matter, especially if you are going to be adding solid ingredients like mushrooms. Just get it as smooth as you can manage, then simmer & stir for a couple of minutes to let it thicken.

Add your seasoning to your personal taste - I used a big pinch of ground black pepper, and a small pinch of salt.

Once you're happy with your sauce, dump in your mushrooms.

You can stir more slowly now, but you need to make sure that all the mushrooms are coated in the sauce.

As the mushrooms cook, they will release moisture into the mixture. As you stir, the mushrooms will shrink and the sauce will get more fluid. Stirring occasionally, simmer your mixture for another 5-10 minutes until the mushrooms are properly reduced, and the extra liquid has evaporated so that the sauce gets thicker again.

When you reach the point that you're almost happy with your sauce, it's time to put your toast on.

That's it - put your toast on your plate, buttered if you fancy, and dollop on about half of the mixture on top.

Enjoy it with a nice mug of builder-strength tea or a strong black coffee.