This recipe was commissioned by Dairy Australia for their Australian Dairy Discovery cookbook.
Straight from the ‘Flavor Thesaurus’
If you’re interested in developing your own recipes, I highly recommend this little book: ‘The Flavor Thesaurus’. It is exactly what it says it is, a guide with ideas how to pair different flavours together.
When you get bored with the usual combinations of flavours (such as tomato with basil, or coconut with ginger etc), I often have a little peak in this book to find suggestions of combinations that are less known, a little unusual.
The idea for this recipe came straight from the book. It suggests to pair soft cheese with mushrooms. It says: “The Penicillium camembertii that gives it its white rind is also responsible for the characteristic mushroom note.”
I had just discovered Shimeji mushrooms, so of course they were my pick for this recipe, but if they are hard to find wherever you are, you can use whatever mushroom you like. Maybe king oyster? Or shitake? Let us know in the comments which ones you tried it with.
Watch us prepare this dish in the wild
Tim and I were lucky to be asked by Dairy Australia to film a lifestyle video, making this dish. We decided to cook it outdoors, with wild mushrooms, over a fire. Have a look:
The video was filmed and edited by Kim Blanza (thekback), produced and concept developed by Tim and Julia.
Mushroom duo on baked camembert
Ingredients
- 200 g wheel of camembert
- ½ clove garlic
- 200 ml vegetable oil
- 40 g enoki mushrooms
- 150 g shimeji mushrooms
- 30 g salted butter
- 1 tbsp honey
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 20 g toasted hazelnuts
- 2 sprigs of thyme
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 200°C (fan forced 180°C). Toast hazelnuts for 10 minutes until fragrant. Remove from the oven, rub the skin off then roughly chop.
- Thinly slice the garlic. Cut the surface of the camembert into a criss-cross pattern and wedge the slices of garlic deep into the cuts. Loosely wrap with aluminium foil then bake for 15-20 minutes.
- Heat the oil to 180°C. Deep fry enoki mushrooms for 5 minutes until they are crisp and a deep golden brown. Remove and drain on paper towels.
- Melt butter in a frypan and fry shimeji mushrooms on medium heat for 5 minutes. Drizzle honey and balsamic vinegar over the mushrooms, add thyme leaves from 1 sprig and cook for another 1-2 minutes until caramelised.
- Place the baked camembert on a plate and top with shimeji mushrooms, sauce included. Decorate with toasted hazelnuts and enoki mushrooms. Finish with thyme leaves.
- Serve warm with crackers or toasted bread.
