Recipe
Polenta with mushroom and borlotti ragù
Every October, in every village in the north of Italy, a certain kind of man disappears into the woods before dawn.
He tells nobody where he is going. He carries a wicker basket, because plastic bags make the mushrooms sweat, and a small curved knife, and he is heading for a spot he has been visiting for thirty years and would sooner lose a finger than describe out loud. He comes back at ten in the morning with a cloth over the basket, and if you ask him how he did he will say eh, poca roba, not much, while moving the basket quietly behind his leg.
Porcini are the reason for all of this. Fresh and in season they cost a small fortune and taste like the smell of a forest floor. Dried, they cost about two euros for a bag that will do six dinners, and they are not the poor relation: drying concentrates them, and the water you soak them in turns into a stock so dark and savoury that it does more for this dish than the mushrooms themselves.
That is the whole trick here. Twenty grams of dried porcini soaked in 300 ml of hot water gives you two ingredients for the price of one, and the strained soaking liquid is what makes a vegetable ragù taste like it came off a bone. Ordinary chestnut mushrooms go in for bulk, borlotti beans for body and protein, and what you end up with behaves exactly like a meat ragù. It thickens, it clings, it is better on the second day, and nobody asks where the meat went.
It goes onto soft polenta, and whatever is left sets into a solid slab in the fridge overnight. That is not a failure. Sliced thick and fried until the edges crisp, that slab is the best thing that will happen to your Tuesday.
- Prep 15 min
- Cook 40 min
- Serves 2
- Cost €
Method
- 1
Cover the dried porcini with the hot water and leave them 15 minutes. Lift them out, chop them, and strain the soaking liquid through a paper towel to catch the grit. Keep both.
15 min
- 2
Fry the chestnut mushrooms in 2 tbsp of the oil over high heat, in one layer, without stirring, until properly browned. Season and tip onto a plate.
8 min
- 3
Lower the heat, add the remaining oil, the onion and the carrot with a pinch of salt, and cook until soft.
8 min
- 4
Add the garlic, rosemary, chopped porcini and tomato purée. Stir for a minute, then pour in the wine and let it reduce by half.
4 min
- 5
Add the strained porcini liquid, the beans and the browned mushrooms. Simmer uncovered until thick and glossy, mashing a few beans against the side of the pan to help it along.
20 min
- 6
Meanwhile boil the water with a good teaspoon of salt, rain in the polenta while whisking, then stir with a wooden spoon until thick. Beat in the olive oil off the heat.
6 min
Variations
A parmigiano rind in the ragù adds depth and loses the vegan flag. Serve over pasta, pappardelle for preference, instead of polenta. A tablespoon of soy sauce sounds wrong and deepens it considerably. Lentils in place of the borlotti give a finer, more bolognese-like texture. Leftover polenta sets solid: slice it 2 cm thick, fry in oil until crisp, and use it as the base the following day.