Wild Mushroom Pilau: A Simple Mushroom Rice Recipe for One

Good dried mushrooms are hard to buy in Spain in any decent quantity, so for this wild mushroom pilau I turned to Sabarot, a French family firm. Jean-Pierre Sabarot founded it in 1819 in the Haute-Loire, and it started out making and selling bed linen. It has traded in wild mushrooms since 1972, and a few days ago a box of them arrived at Casa Adora.

The pilau is a simple mushroom rice recipe for one: dried porcini and mixed wild mushrooms, fresh brown mushrooms, basmati rice, warming spices and slow-cooked onions. The mushroom soaking liquor goes into the rice in place of stock, and a squeeze of lemon at the table lifts the earthy flavour. It is a mushroom rice recipe UK cooks can make from the supermarket, apart from the dried mushrooms.

Mushroom Rice Recipe — Ingredients

Serves 1

• 75g basmati rice, rinsed until the water runs clear
• 10g dried porcini
• 10g mixed dried wild mushrooms
• 70g brown mushrooms, sliced
• 1¼ tablespoons olive oil
• 7g ghee, plus 1 teaspoon cold ghee to finish
• A pinch of sea salt
• ½ teaspoon cumin seeds
• ¼ teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1 small bay leaf
• 1cm stick of cinnamon or cassia
• ½ large red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 garlic clove, finely sliced
• A generous pinch of freshly ground black pepper
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• A generous pinch of chilli powder
• A small pinch of turmeric
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 6g fresh coriander
• ½ lemon, cut into wedges
• 1 tablespoon toasted flaked almonds or chopped cashews

How to Make This Simple Mushroom Rice Recipe

Allow about an hour and a half from start to finish. Most of it is soaking, slow onions and resting, so the hands-on time is short.

1. Put the dried porcini and mixed wild mushrooms in a bowl and pour over 200ml of boiling water. Leave to soak for 20 to 30 minutes.
2. Lift out the mushrooms, squeeze them dry and roughly chop any large pieces. Strain the soaking liquor through a fine sieve lined with kitchen paper to catch the grit. Measure out 140ml, topping up with hot water if it comes up short.
3. Separate the coriander stalks from the leaves. Finely chop the stalks and roughly chop the leaves.
4. Heat a large frying pan or sauté pan over a medium-high heat. Add the brown mushrooms and the rehydrated wild mushrooms and dry-fry for 6 to 8 minutes, stirring now and then, until they have released their moisture and started to colour at the edges. Tip them into a bowl and set aside.
5. Return the pan to a medium heat and add the olive oil and ghee. Add the cumin seeds, fennel seeds, bay leaf and cinnamon stick and fry for 30 seconds until fragrant.
6. Add the onion, coriander stalks and a pinch of salt. Cook gently for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring occasionally, until deeply soft and lightly caramelised.
7. Add the garlic, black pepper, garam masala, chilli powder and turmeric and cook for 1 minute. Return the mushrooms to the pan and stir them through the onions.
8. Add the soy sauce and cook for 30 seconds until absorbed. Stir in the rice and cook for 1 minute, coating every grain in the spiced oil.
9. Pour in the 140ml of mushroom liquor and bring to a gentle simmer. Cover with a tight-fitting lid, turn the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes without lifting the lid.
10. Take the pan off the heat, put a clean tea towel under the lid and leave the rice to rest for 10 minutes.
11. Discard the bay leaf and cinnamon stick and fluff the rice gently with a fork. Fold through the coriander leaves and the cold teaspoon of ghee.
12. Spoon into a warm bowl, scatter over the toasted almonds or cashews and serve with the lemon wedges. Squeeze the lemon over just before eating.

A Note on the Dried Mushrooms

Dried mushrooms weigh far less than fresh, so a little goes a long way. Twenty grams is plenty for one portion. The soaking liquor is half the flavour, so don't throw it away, and do strain it, as dried mushrooms carry grit.

If you can only find one kind of dried wild mushroom, use 20g of that. Dried porcini on their own are fine.

Make It Vegan

Swap the ghee for vegan butter or a little more olive oil. Everything else in this mushroom rice recipe is already plant-based, and the dish keeps its savoury mushroom flavour.

For more ways with mushrooms, try my Mushroom Stroganoff for One or my Campervan Mushroom and Chickpea Stew.

If this mushroom pilau made your supper, you can buy me a coffee ☕ on Ko-fi.

Footnote

This recipe is part of my Mushroom Recipes, Rice Recipes and Veggie & Vegan collections.
Find more recipes and food adventures here.
Wonky photos, proper food, genuine adventures – The Flexible Chef