Fiction To Sink Your Teeth Into, a feature from author and professional chef Rohan O’Duill!

This month I had the pleasure to create a recipe for my debut novel, Cold Rising, that was released last month.

Cold Rising is a science fiction novella set predominantly in the underground metropolis on Mars. The agricultural zone there grows mushrooms and fungi, so I have created a miner’s version of mushroom duxelles. This is great as a snack on some toast, but is also very versatile—you can add it to almost anything. My son loves it mixed through some pasta, for example.

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp of oil
• 1 onion diced
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 400g of mushrooms
• Fresh thyme
• Cracked pepper and sea salt
• 100g butter
• Bread for toast

Equipment
• Frying pan
• Blender

Directions:

You can use any edible mushrooms for this dish. I grabbed a mixed tray of wild mushrooms in the supermarket for an array of flavours.

• Roughly dice and saute the mushrooms, onion, garlic and thyme in the oil for about 5 minutes on a medium heat. The mushrooms will release water and you want to make sure that is all evaporated off.
• Add in the butter and continue cooking up till the butter starts to turn brown. This is called nut brown butter and gives an extra nuttiness to the flavour.
• Remove from the heat, season and blend. You now have your duxelles mix.
• Toast some sourdough or any nice bread and spread the duxelles on top for a delicious snack.

This snack will go pretty well with almost any beverage. So pick the poison of your choice and sit back and enjoy the show.