The World That Was - Apicius' Sautéed Mushrooms

Hello and Welcome to The World That Was!



Today, I'll be making a quick side-dish from Rome, as recorded by Apicius! He has a few ways of preparing mushrooms, but this is one of the more flavourful methods he shows us!

In any case, let's now take a look at The World That Was! Follow along with my YouTube video, above!


Ingredients

500g mushrooms (I used chestnut mushrooms)

2 tbsp red wine vinegar (or malt vinegar)

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp pepper

fresh coriander or parsley


Method

1 - Chop the Mushrooms

This is a rather simple recipe, but to begin with, we need to prepare our mushrooms. I used chestnut mushrooms, sliced into thin segments, but button or Portobello mushrooms may also be similar to what was available in antiquity, along with edible morels. If you have smaller mushrooms, you can skip slicing these, and proceed with cooking them as is!


2 - Sautee Mushrooms

Into a hot pot, pour a generous amount of olive oil - enough to coat the base. On top of this, toss your mushrooms. Sprinkle this with a bit of salt to help draw the moisture out of the mushrooms, before placing the pot over a medium heat. Stir everything around gently, so the mushrooms sweat out their moisture. Depending on what mushrooms you use, this may result in them being crushed slightly.

Sauté these for about 3 -5 minutes.


3 - Sauté other ingredients

When your fungal friends have taken on a bit of colour, toss in some fresh coriander, and some freshly-ground black pepper, and a couple of tablespoons of red wine vinegar, before stirring everything together and returning to the heat for another 3-5 minutes.

Be careful not to burn your mushrooms!


4 - Serve!

When your mushrooms are cooked, take these out of the cooking liquid, and place them in a bowl. Put the liquid over a high heat and let it boil down and reduce into a sauce.

Pour the sauce over your mushrooms, and dig in with some bread!


The finished mushrooms are super tender and flavourful - the vinegar really amplifies their meaty texture. The chestnut mushrooms I used retained a little bite to them, which was a welcome sensation!

Although the original recipe states that you should remove the coriander when serving the mushrooms, I chose to leave a few of them in so the dish retains a little bit of colour. The vinegar doesn't have a very sharp taste once the sauce has thickened and reduced, and gives the mushrooms a lovely dark glaze.


In antiquity, this could have been a fancy version of a peasant dish - what is essentially stewed mushrooms. Garlic was surprisingly absent from Apicius' mushroom recipes (this one too) which possibly suggests that they weren't seen as complementary flavours in Roman cuisine. The absence of garum - or fish sauce - also is an outlier here. Potentially, the tastes of the time didn't agree with the addition of garum or garlic, or perhaps this is an example of an "imported" dish in Roman cuisine - one that was introduced to the Romans as a result of their conflict with neighbouring civilisations. Either way, this is a quick and simple mushroom dish that pairs lovely with other Roman recipes - such as stewed meats - or even as a tasty starter

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