The Lemdell Mushroom stall at Flemington Markets is one of our favourites, and over the years, Mary and Roula have become dear friends.
Roula and her husband now run their own fruit store on the main street of Kogarah, but we still see Mary at the markets every fortnight. We were hosting a vegetarian dinner party last weekend, so I asked her to source some gourmet mushrooms for us.
There were locally grown pink baby oyster mushrooms…
…Huon Valley shiitake (I didn’t even know we were growing these here!) and Swiss browns…
…and the most beautiful cream-coloured Australian enoki…
We turned the Swiss browns into Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s Cambodian wedding day dip…
…and combined the shiitake, enoki and oysters with white button mushrooms in Ottolenghi’s mushroom lasagna.
Here’s the dinner menu we printed for the occasion…
Starters
Freshly baked sourdough ciabatta con semola rimacinata di grano duro
Roasted beetroot dip with cumin, coriander and smoked sweet paprika
Cambodian wedding day dip
. . . . .
Main Course
Exotic mushroom lasagne, with pink and white oyster mushrooms, Huon Valley shiitake and locally grown enoki mushrooms
Oven baked ratatouille of red and yellow capsicum, eggplant and zucchini
in a San Marzano tomato sauce
. . . . .
Dessert
Valrhona Manjari Chocolate Cake, served with
sweetened Mascarpone cream and Valrhona chocolate sauce
. . . . .
The wedding day dip was the hit of the night – a rich, spicy mix flavoured with peanut butter, curry and garlic. It was delicious served on sourdough, but would have been equally as good as a main meal on rice.
Roula and Mary, thank you for such beautiful produce. It made our dinner party extra special!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 
I have never seen pink oyster mushroom before. It looks so lovely… like rose :)
Tes, I’d never seen one like that before! They were so beautiful! :)
Wow Celia, what a decadent dinner you hosted and served – full marks!
I have never seen pink oyster mushrooms before – they are gorgeous!
:-) Mandy
Mandy, thank you! It was a wonderful night…
Stunning dinner and you do have good food connections, I put up an ‘In MY Kitchen’ post today!! i should do them more often, it is interesting to actually LOOK at my kitchen as opposed to cooking IN my kitchen.. thank you celia.. c
Celi, thanks for playing, it was really fun to peek into your kitchen today. I love your risque fridge magnets…hahaha, now that will get everyone clicking over to your post in a hurry! :)
I love mushrooms, and there are varieties there that I’ve never before. Very interesting post!
Thanks Misk! The enoki are an old favourite of ours, but the pink oysters and the locally grown shiitake are new to us! :)
My gosh, Celia… what an amazing feast!
and your picture of the Cambodian dip is so much better than the one in the site, it’s not even funny ;-)
Wonderful meal, perfectly chosen menu…
Sally, thank you for saying that – Pete and I were up at 10pm the night before trying to decide what to cook! We’re not very skilled at vegetarian cooking, but we’ve improved a little over the last couple of years, thanks to Messrs Ottolenghi and Fearnley-Whittingstall! :)
Great stuff! I have grown those pink oyster mushrooms once from a kit and the white and the grey ones, but it was an expensive exercise, better to leave it to the professionals like your friends.
Delicious dinner – lucky friends to have you cooking for them.
Guess what I’m having for supper – sprats and mackerel, your previous post must have been in my mind and I made your chocolate chip cookies for my lovely hairdresser and gave her your recipe for her little boy to do with her in the hols. I presented them to them in a recycled hairdressing shampoo cardboard box which fitted the cookies perfectly. What would I do without you? xx
Joanna, thank you for the sage and timely advice. Just yesterday I was looking at those mushroom growing kits, but we’d had such a bad run with the first one we tried (I think we got maybe two or three mushrooms only!), that I was hesitant. You’ve made my mind up for me now…
I’ve never had a sprat! Was it delicious? And I hope your hairdresser liked the cookies, thank you for letting me know you’d made them for her! You are a very sweet friend.. xxx
I have some serious mushroom envy now! These look wonderful, as do all the recipes.
Greg, it’s so rare for us to have such unusual mushrooms that I had to take photos! :)
My mushroom-loving husband would buy a plane ticket to you if he read this. Thus, I will keep it to myself (a former mushroom-eater turned mushroom-allergic person).
Thanks Emily, but I’m sorry to hear you can’t eat them anymore! I’d be lost without mushrooms, it would make a big difference to our diets!
Aren’t those exotic mushrooms ever so pretty! My favourite stall, or one of them, at the Capital Region Farmer’s Markets is Li Sun Mushrooms. The owner has promised a tour, so I will pop something onto my web pages in the new year. Celia, you are a beautiful cook… if I dined at your house, I think I would need to start wearing moo moos or kaftans… they are in fashion again, aren’t they? LOL.
Lizzy, a lot of these came from the Li Sun company, but I’ve found the pricing varies enormously depending on where you buy their product. Mary sourced these for me at a reasonable price (she was doing us a big favour), but I’ve seen the Li Sun produce at Orange Grove markets for $50/kg!!
Delicious looking mushrooms! Yum!
Thanks Claire! :)
Hi celia, was reading the menu you served and noticed san marzano tomato. I’ve been on the look here in Sydney for any type (whole peeled, crushed etc) of san marzano. Please tell me where you managed to find them?
Heard a lot about them when I was in New York recently and brought a few cans home and they were the best tomatoes I’d ever had.
Btw that menu sounds great, will definitely try making that mushroom lasagne.
Wasfieh, thanks for stopping by! I bought my San Marzanos in tins from Paesanella Cheese Shop in Haberfield. Agree that they’re the most amazing tomatoes we’ve ever tried! They were $18 per 6 tins, slightly more if you were only purchasing single tins.
I posted about them a little while ago here:
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2011/05/18/in-my-kitchen-may-2011/
Celia what a lovely sounding menu for your dinner party. Lucky dinner guests!
Thanks Brydie! We don’t do a lot of vegetarian cooking, and it’s really nice to have a reason to explore new recipes!
I’ve never seen pink oyster mushrooms before. They’re so pretty. Oh be a guest at one of Celia’s dinner parties!
It would be lovely to have you, Claire! :)
what a lovely meal you created..i’m sure your guests were in raptures..
Thanks Jane! We had a great night! :)
When I first saw the 1st picture & thought I saw dried rose petals alongside the mushrooms!
So special mushrooms & what a lovely & fantastic menu that you savoured! That lasagna looks very appetizing! Yummie! :)
Thanks Sophie! They do look like flowers, don’t they? The problem is that I now want to explore all the different exotic mushrooms available, and it’s an expensive exercise! :)
What a beautiful dinner. I love those pink tinged mushrooms :)
Nic, mushrooms are almost “new” to us Aussies – in the UK and Europe there is a long history of mushroom picking which we don’t seem to have here. I’d be too chicken to eat anything I picked anyway, so it’s nice that there are new varieties coming onto the market lately…
I’ve never seen those pink mushies before – they look just beautiful.
And what a lovely menu – I feel quite hungry now!
Thanks Amanda! We’re usually such carnivores, it was nice to skip the meat for a change! :)
I LOVE mushrooms and am always trying to source different types. These look – and I’m sure would taste, fantastic!
Will have to try that lasagne, and the wedding day dip and….
Thanks Sue, the lasagne is really nice, but the wedding day dip is so unusual – it’s a bit like a cross between a mushroom curry and a satay! It changes a lot depending on your choice of curry powder as well!
What a stunning menu! I’m sure it tasted great. Beautiful serving dishes, too
Manuela, thank you! The little orange bowls are from Metin, and are apparently a very traditional design, with turbanned men on horseback. I absolutely love them! :)
https://figjamandlimecordial.com/2010/02/02/ceramics/
Let me assure you all, it tasted as amazing as it looks!! I was one of the two lucky guests. I can truly say, as a vegetarian, that it was the finest vego meal I have ever had. Absolutely outstanding !!
Matey, you know how much Pete and I look forward to these dinners! It was a fabulous night! :)
Wowie, what treasures! And I love the bowl :)
Thanks Cindy! I’m a big fan of the Turkish ceramics.. :)
Oh my gosh! I want to eat all of this! Good vegetarian cooking is so hard to come by. I must try that dip.
Maz.
PS Roasted a chicken for the mencats tonight and made bread sauce for the first time. It was good but not craveworthy. The recipe that I have been playing with is: thin slices of crustless bread spread with minced onion, mayo and parmesan with salt pepper and whatever mustard / spice I’m partial to that day. Mix together and spread on bread triangles. A few minutes under the broiler and zoom! Insta-snack.
Maz, your toast topper sounds very nice! It would probably work well with the leeks we’ve got growing in the garden at the moment! :)
ooh! yes! Leeks carmelized and sprinkled on top = we like! if you cut the bread up into squares or small triangles you’ll have a nice appetizer.
A thin slice of apple would work well too.
wow, those mushrooms are amazing! I love the different varieties and always keep some exotics in my fridge :)
Tandy, I’d love to try more of them, but they’re often so expensive! They’re a fascinating ingredient to play with though, and I’m always surprised by how different the varieties taste!
Delightful pictures and sumptuous menu, Celia. I’m sure your guests did not go home hungry!!
Thanks Christine! We were all pretty stuffed! :)
What beautiful mushrooms! I love the long skinny enoki mushrooms. They look like something that would grow on the ocean floor. I would have loved to try your lasagna. I have threatened to try a vegetarian lasagna before here at home. When I here the grumbling and see the frown on hubbys face, then I chicken out and don’t make it, because I don’t want him to be unhappy. Sounds like a very delicious evening you had!!!
Mel, I had more enoki, and they all went into a large pan of fried noodles tonight. Very versatile ingredient! :)
The mushrooms- especially those pink ones – made my mouth water!
I love mushrooms- in every savory recipe there should be a place for mushrooms! These looked so fresh and lovely- you definitely have good suppliers!
Heidi, Mary and Rouls have the very best mushrooms in town! If I can’t buy from them, then I make do without! :)
What a feast! I walked past Ottolenghi in Notting Hill yesterday and thought of you.
Anna, my friend Lisa brought me back a present from Ottolenghi when she ate there earlier in the year! I’ll be posting a photo of it tomorrow.. :)
My goodness what beautiful pink mushrooms, I’ve never seen anything like it before.
They were new to me too! And so pretty!
What a beautiful feast. As for the recipes, a great fan of Hugh and Yotam. Thanks for pointing me in the direction of that mushroom lasagna – a must-try.
What a fun, fabulous funghilicious feast! The variety of mushrooms home grown really is amazing, thanks to such great producers.
I love how many ways you showcased the yummiest ways to devour these delights :-)
Opps think that’s the morphine speaking!