This is an interesting approach to an omelette. It's a little bit like a soufflé... That you then fill and fold in half.

Like I said, interesting.

I did enjoy it though. And it was kind of fun to try something a bit different for breakfast. I did find myself wishing there as more filling though. I mean, I did have slightly less mushrooms than called for but, even so, I feel like the quantity given in the recipe isn't enough for the amount of omelette. I guess the eggs are meant to be the star of the show. The filling is actually listed as completely optional! But I feel it really needs the filling to complete it. And I really liked the filling, so I've doubled all the filling quantities below. Feel free to use less filling if you'd like, but this is how I'd make it if I were going to be doing it again.

Puffed Omelette

Slightly adapted from The Good Egg by Marie Simmons

Ingredients

• 4 large eggs, separated
• pepper, to taste
• 1/4 c. cold water
• 1/2 tsp. coarse sea salt
• 1 Tbsp. unsalted butter, divided
• 150-200g mushroms¹, sliced
• 2 Tbsp. chopped flat-leaf parsley
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 tsp. dried thyme (or 1/2 Tbsp. fresh)
• 2-4 Tbsp. grated cheddar or Gruyère

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F).
2. Grind a bit of pepper into the egg yolks and whisk to combine.
3. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until foamy.
4. Add the water and salt and continue beating until soft peaks form².
5. Add ~1/3 of the whites to the yolk mixture and mix well. Don't worry about deflating the whites at this point. Just make sure everything is evenly mixed. This first portion of whites just helps to loosen and lighten the yolk mixture to make it easier to fold in the remaining whites.
6. Add ~1/2 of the remaining whites and carefully fold them in.
7. Fold in the remaining whites until just combined.
8. Melt a little of the butter (1/2-3/4 tsp.) in a large oven-safe pan over low heat.
9. Add the egg mixture to the pan and cook for ~3 minutes. Do not stir!
10. Transfer the pan to the pan to the oven and bake at 180°C (350°F) for 15 minutes³.
11. Meanwhile, melt the remaining butter over medium heat.
12. Add the mushrooms and cook for ~5 minutes.
13. Add the garlic, parsley, and thyme and cook for another minute or so.
14. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
15. Remove from heat and set aside until omelette is ready.
16. Once omelette is cooked through, add the mushroom mixture to the middle of the omelette and top with cheese.
17. Carefully fold the omelette over.
18. Cut in half and serve with toast and/or a sauce of your choice⁴.

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¹ The recipe doesn't specify what kind of mushrooms, so normally I'd default to cremini here, but I just happened to have some excellent black oyster mushrooms from the folks at Noki Farms sitting in my fridge, so I tossed those in. They were delicious! I definitely recommend using oyster mushrroms if you have them. The black oyster mushrooms were great and I would definitely use them again, but I think pink oyster could also be wonderful. They would give it an almost bacon-y vibe. (Plus they're just so pretty! I'm always looking for an excuse to buy them.) ^{Back 2} Sadly, I think I over-beat my eggs slightly. It was still a nice omelette, just probably not quite optimal. (And possibly why my omelette tore when I tried to fold it over.) ^Back
3 The original recipe calls for baking the omelette for 12-15 minutes and gives dire warnings against over-baking as this will cause the eggs to become tough. Given such warnings, I elected to bake my omelette for only 12 minutes, turn the oven off, add the filling, and then put it back in the hot oven for 2 minutes. I think this was fine, but I found I actually preferred the more "well-done" outer portions of the omelette, so I think I will just bake it for the full 15 minutes from now on. ^Back
4 I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I think it would be excellent with some of this fancy ketchup! ^Back

So there's a new fungus farm in town, and twice now symbol has brought home delicious mushrooms from them. The first time round I made a nice pasta dish with them (which did not, sadly, make it into photographs). This time they came home with a recipe for crab-cake-style fried patties, which I prepared as written.

They were tasty, but if I have one complaint it's that the batter, prepared to direction, was pretty dry and tended to self-destruct in the pan when flipped, so instead of four patties we got two and a half patties and a bunch of tasty mushroom chaff. If making it again I'd probably add another egg to help it cohere.

The recipe suggests serving with tartar sauce, which I think would be delicious but which, sadly, we do not have. The kidlet had one with ketchup and thought it was delicious — in fact, both this and the mushroom pasta were hits with her! Historically she's detested mushrooms, but she loves the mushrooms from Noki Farms, and said of this one that they would make an excellent meat replacement.

Bear's Head Fungus Cakes

Noki Farms

Ingredients

• 220g bear's head (or lion's mane, or both) fungus
• 1 small onion, finely chopped
• 1 egg
• 1 tbsp mayo
• 1 tsp Worchestershire sauce
• ¾ tsp Old Bay seasoning
• 1 tsp mustard
• 2 tbsp fresh cilantro, finely chopped
• ¼ tsp each salt and pepper
• ½ C panko
• greens, lemon wedges, and tartar sauce for serving

Directions

1. Tear mushrooms into thin flakes, then press firmly to remove liquid and set aside to dry.
2. In a large bowl, combine onion, egg, mayo, Worchestershire sauce, Old Bay, mustard, salt, and pepper.
3. Stir in mushrooms and panko.
4. Form into four round, flat patties.
5. Cook in a skillet in a bit of oil over medium-high heat.
6. Serve with greens, lemon, and tartar sauce.

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As written, this is a simple pasta dish with peas, butter, and prosciutto, meant to showcase the prosciutto with a minimum of competing flavours. We didn't have any prosciutto, but we did have a bunch of pink oyster and lion's mane from our local mushroomerie, Noki Farms. They were recommended to us as having a sort of bacon-y and chicken-y flavour, respectively, and I figured, why not use them in place of the prosciutto?

The result probably did not closely resemble the original recipe, but it was very tasty. I suspect you could significantly play with the mushroom proportions and types and still get good results, too.

Tagliolini alla Romagnola (mushroom style)

Adapted from The Classic Pasta Cookbook (p.90)

Ingredients

• For 1 pound dry, store-bought pasta
• 240mL green peas (ideally fresh and just cooked, but frozen also work fine)
• 6 tbsp butter
• 250 g lion's mane mushrooms, sliced
• 125 g pink oyster mushrooms, sliced
• parmesan for serving

Directions

1. Cook the pasta al dente.
2. Meanwhile, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat.
3. Add the mushrooms and cook until they have released their liquid and cooked down.
4. Season with salt and pepper, toss with the pasta, and serve with parmesan.