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Mushroom Sauce
Latvians love mushrooms. Foraging for chanterelles, porcinis and rucula is a national obsession, occupying large number of Latvians during the late summer and fall. It's thus not surprising that mushrooms feature in may of their recipes, particularly in soup and sauces. These are eaten on roasted or fried meats, potatoes and dumplings. I love mushrooms myself, and thus I had to make the classic dish of boiled potatoes with mushroom sauce which is used to accompany many meats.
Most recipes for mushroom sauce specify the use of "chanterelles" or "wild mushrooms," and mention that smoked ham or bacon are optional. I also loved bacon, so I decided to add it to my sauce but you can skip it and just use butter. The method is quite simple but you may want to play around with the proportions. If you use sour cream, you may need to add some milk too to thin the sauce. If you use heavy cream, a small squeeze of lemon juice might add some needed acidity. I ended up using a combo of sour cream and heavy cream.
The sauce was great, even though I used shiitake mushrooms, rather than chanterelles, as the latter were nowhere to be found. At first I was doubtful about them, but they turned out to be very good. Alas, they are twice as expensive as button mushrooms and I'm not sure they're worth it.
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Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients
- bacon, chopped
- 2 Tbsp butter (if needed)
- 1/2 small onion, finely chopped
- 8 oz chanterelles or shiitake mushrooms, coarsely chopped
- salt & pepper to taste
- heavy cream or sour cream
Directions
Heat chopped bacon in a saucepan over medium heat until the fat is mostly rendered. Add butter if not enough fat has rendered. Add the chopped onion and cook until it starts to brown. Add the mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Cook until the mushrooms soften up. Add the cream and cook for a couple of minutes.
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Adapted from several recipes.
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