8 minutes · no cook beyond the toast
Pickled Mushroom Toast with Ricotta
Browned butter, sheep's-milk ricotta, shimeji, and gold.
- Time
- 8 minutes
- Serves
- 2
- The jar
- Pickled White Shimeji
- Ferment
- 21 days
Ingredients
- 2 thick slices country sourdough
- 50g sheep's-milk ricotta
- 1 small jar Pickled White Shimeji
- 1 tbsp browned butter
- Cracked black pepper
- A pinch of edible gold leaf (optional)
Method
- Toast sourdough dark and crisp.
- Brown butter until it smells like hazelnut, then brush both slices.
- Spread a generous layer of ricotta, don't be precious.
- Lift shimeji clusters onto the ricotta with a fork to keep their shape.
- Crack pepper, sprinkle gold, eat standing up.
Why this jar
White shimeji is the only one of the five that holds its shape as a cluster, and on a piece of toast that matters more than flavour. Lifted with a fork the little stems stay joined and sit up out of the ricotta instead of sinking into it. A sliced mushroom would disappear.
It is also the lightest jar we make, fermented 21 days — the shortest run in the range, kept short so the snap survives. Ricotta and browned butter are both soft and both rich; the whole dish rests on one ingredient having some bite to it.
The browned butter is not optional
It is the only cooked element and it is what stops this being a cold assembly. Butter browned to the point it smells of hazelnut brings a nuttiness that meets the mustard seed in the brine. Melted butter does not do this, and olive oil does something else entirely — pleasant, but a different plate.
Swapping the jar
Crimini is the easy substitute — halve the caps so they sit flat. Black shimeji gives you the same cluster shape with more going on around it, and the toasted coriander in that jar is very good against ricotta.
What to do with the rest of the jar
Two slices of toast take a fraction of a 480g jar. White shimeji is the jar to reach for when you want acid without weight, so it goes into rice bowls and cold noodle salads as the sharp element instead of a dressing, and onto a charcuterie board next to burrata.
Through hot pasta, add them off the heat at the last moment. Three weeks of ferment goes soft in a hot pan faster than you would expect.