As I already showed other times, I love this season and I love one of its main products: the porcini mushrooms 🙂

In this new post I’m going to show one of the more common ways to prepare them in Italy as a side dish…and what a side dish! 🙂 it’s so great and simple too, and it will make you fully appreciate the whole flavor of porcini.

It’ very easy and fast to do, and we need just few ingredients. But it will be the perfect match to many good recipes as beef stews, tenderloins, roasted meats, game meat but also simply paired to a good Polenta 🙂

Let’s see how to do it.

INGREDIENTS (4 people):

• 600-800 g of fresh porcini
• 2 cloves of garlic
• extra virgin olive oil
• 1 knob of butter
• fresh parsley
• freshly ground black pepper
• salt

1. First of all carefully clean the porcini: don’t wash them, never. Brush their stipe/stem with a small knife or a brush to remove the possible ground, and carefully clean the cap by using a wet kitchen paper. Remove also the possible ruined parts.
2. When you have cleaned the porcini you can cut them in slices, but keep the stipes/stems divided from the caps: we will have to cook the stems a bit longer than the caps.
3. Now take a large pan, heat a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil and add the garlic cloves. When the garlic gets a golden color remove it and then add the stipes/stems of the porcini first. Cook them at medium/low heat for about 5 minutes. Mix it sometimes and don’t let them to attach on the bottom.
4. Then add the caps and cook them together for other 5-6 minutes about, don’t overcook them: in this way they will keep a nice texture and they will not be too much soft.  Season also with salt and black pepper, and a couple of minutes before being ready add a knob of butter, and mix well until the butter is melted.
5. When they are ready switch off the heat, add some fresh parsley and serve them next to some very tasty recipe, as I suggested at the beginning 🙂 Enjoy!

It could be perfect next to THIS recipe for example 🙂