Creamy Mushroom and Kale Gratin
Ingredients
- 2 Tbsp butter
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 cup finely chopped onion
- 2 cloves garlic minced
- 4 cups of sliced cremini mushrooms
- 2 packed cups of finely chopped kale thawed if frozen
- 1/2 cup white wine
- 1 cup 35% cream
- 2 oz parmesan grated (about 1 cup)
- 4 oz mozzarella grated (about 2 cups)
- 6 Tbsp breadcrumbs
- 1 Tbsp butter melted
Instructions
- Melt butter and oil in a 10-inch cast iron frying pan over medium heat. Once butter is sizzling, add onion. Sauté until soft and translucent, about 7 minutes. Remove onions from the pan with a slotted spoon and set aside.
- Add mushrooms to the same pan. Sauté for 5 to 7 minutes, until mushrooms have softened and released their juices. Turn heat to medium high and continue to sauté, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are browned and crispy. Add white wine and garlic, reducing heat to medium.
- When most of the wine has cooked off, add kale and sauté until kale is cooked but still bright, about 3 to 4 minutes.
- Add cream. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until thickened, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and add cheese, stirring until cheese is completely melted.
- Once cheese has melted, spoon the mixture into 8 1/2-cup ramekins. (There might be some mixture leftover — refrigerate and save for another day. Eat within a few days.)
- In a small bowl, combine breadcrumbs and melted butter. Spoon breadcrumbs over each ramekin. Broil for 3 to 4 minutes, until golden brown.
- Remove from oven. Serve immediately, accompanied by garlic bread.
Notes
Garlic Bread
Ingredients
- 1/2 baguette sliced into 1/4-inch slices
- 1 large clove garlic
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil
- Salt and pepper
Instructions
- Toast baguette slices in a 425F oven until edges are browned, about 5 minutes.
- Slice garlic clove in half. Rub one side of each slice of toasted bread with the garlic. Crumbs of garlic will stay on the bread, almost as though the bread is a grater.
- Pour oil into a dinner plate and add salt and pepper. Press the garlicky side of the toasted bread slices into the oil, making sure the surface is coated. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Notes
On our last several visits to Scotland, my roommate and I have grown accustomed to eating well in Glasgow restaurants.
We’ve dined on imaginative, delicious dishes like sea trout with langoustine emulsion at Café Gandalfi, for example, or fried artichokes, garlic yogurt and burnt Aleppo butter at Ox and Finch, a bistro near the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum.
On our last visit, from which we have just returned, we did not fare so well. I’m not sure why – perhaps a combination of ordering the wrong thing at the right restaurant, or choosing the wrong restaurant, or not getting to Glasgow until our second-last day.
This time, our best meals were at home, at my roommate’s brother’s place in Stewarton and at our rented cottage on the outskirts of Kingussie, near Cairngorm National Park. Kingussie boasted a butcher, indeed a renowned butcher — as the helpful welcome package from our host informed us.
We visited the butcher of renown on our very first morning and came home with a selection to last a few days: rib-eye steak, lamb chops, pork terrine, and for the two Scots in the party, blood pudding (cue a shudder from yours truly).
We concocted sauces with red wine, Sainsbury’s Double Cream (why do we not make double cream in this country?) blueberries from Morocco and British tomatoes, cooking everything on the stove top because we couldn’t get the oven to work. We did not suffer.
Then, in Glasgow on that second-last day, after a train ride from Stewarton in a railway car jammed with (Catholic) Celtic football fans in green and white striped jerseys drinking from the bottle and banging the ceilings with their fists while roaring out Celtic cheers, after dodging the Orange walk of 2,500 people organized by the (Protestant) County Grand Lodge of Glasgow, we found a beautiful Spanish restaurant near George Square with a large patio on the shady side of the street — did I mention that it was really hot in Scotland for three whole weeks?
There, at last, we ate the kind of quality restaurant food we remembered, this time with an Andalusian twist. Tapas of grilled bruschetta with silky roasted tomatoes; oyster mushrooms and spinach cooked in white wine and cream with a cheesy gratin topping. A glass of Sangria and a foamy San Miguel beer and we were in heaven. (We left Glasgow on the mid-afternoon train to avoid getting caught up in any Celtic-Orange skirmishes!)
Now, back at home, with the gardening season looming and the prospect of fresh kale all summer long ahead, I felt compelled to use up the last of the frozen kale in a recreation of that splendid Spanish mushroom and spinach dish at Café Andaluz.
