Hugh’s Mushroom Ragout with Cheesey Rosemary Polenta

This weekend it’s been all about Hugh.  Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall that is.  Hugh has to be up there with one of my favourite cooks, so I’ve been enjoying watching his new Veg Everyday series, albeit it a little slower than everyone else as I’m watching it online when I get a free hour in the evenings.

We made two meals this weekend that he’s made recently and both were delicious – I hope they become part of our cooking repetoir.  The first one I wanted to share was his Mushroom Ragout with Soft Polenta, which we made for tea last night.  I’ve only tried cooking polenta once before and it was a disaster – it didn’t taste of anything and we ended up dumping the lot.

This time the polenta was delicious – I think maybe last time I was too shy with my seasoning – a nice loose texture spiked with chopped rosemary from the garden and finely grated Parmesan.  The mushrooms too were to tasty – I added quite a bit more red wine than the recipe asks for because the liquid kept disappearing (we were doing half the recipe) but it didn’t seem to be a problem!

We ate it with a pile of peashoots and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

Homemade flatbreads cooked on the barbeque

Last weekend we celebrated the fine weather with our first barbeque of the season (hopefully not the last!).  We had tiny buffalo koftas from Laverstoke Park Farm, asparagus, new potatoes baked in the embers, and homemade flatbreads.

This was a new adventure for us – attempting to make our own flatbreads – and I was desperately worried they would go all crispy, and not soft and doughy like I was hoping.  If there was anyone I was going to put my trust in, it was Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.