Recipe - Mushrooms on Toast

I absolutely adore mushrooms which is handy being vegetarian. I don't even mind eating the little button mushrooms that everyone thinks have no flavour.

Here in Australia, I know Spring is not the right time for mushrooms but I (as previously) mentioned am tardy in the blogging department. But I do still make this abut once a week. The mushrooms that I use are whatever I have on hand. In the past I have enoki, chanterelle, yellow oyster, oyster, swiss browns and shitake's as well as plain old mushrooms.

This recipe began life in a book called Practically Macrobiotic (an amazing book with the most beautiful illustrations). It was in it's original form called something like mushrooms on fried sourdough toast. The main flavours used were ginger, garlic and sesame oil as well as the mushrooms. I tried it a few times as the original and just could not help myself and had to add to it. So now this is roughly what I use each time:

• Mushrooms
• Garlic
• Ginger (I am sorry to say both the garlic and ginger are ready crushed from a jar - but it's breakfast)
  
• Preserved lemon
• Dried Thyme
• Olive Oil
• Sourdough bread - toasted

The preserved lemon gives it all the seasoning I find it needs and makes it intensely sour. It's the same feeling you get from having some umeboshi at breakfast - invigorating and slightly mouth puckering. I know sour is not a taste everyone would like a breakfast but isn't that the point. Everyone can make their own breakfast exactly how they would like it and everyone knows exactly how they would like it (apparently breakfast service is the bane of some chef's lives - trying to get everyone's eggs right).

I thought that I would also share a vintage recipe with you for mushrooms on toast from Good Housekeeping Picture Recipes for which I cannot find a date. The mushrooms are under the Smorrebrod section - After Dinner and Cocktail Savouries.