IN 1998 I SPENT six months working in the UK, living in a flat in the dingy London suburb Slough (rhymes with cow) made famous by The Office (and, before that, by the poet laureate John Betjeman).
I watched—along with everyone else—BBC episodes of Delia Cooks, Ready Steady Cook, Two Fat Ladies, Nigel Slater, and ate extraordinary Indian food. On Sundays I would ride my bike through the countryside, pulling over for a pint every so often and eventually stopping to sup on afternoon roast before wobbling back home.
One of my favorite quick meals was a hot vegetarian sandwich that Nigel Slater calls a Bap. He roasts the caps of large field mushrooms with garlic butter and parsley. This simple sandwich is excellent. Besides the usual portobello, try it with a haul of wild porcini mushrooms.
To make the sandwich, pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Chop together some garlic and parsley and mix into a large dollop of softened butter with a generous sprinkling of salt. Slather each inverted mushroom cap with the garlic butter and roast for about 20 minutes. When the mushrooms are cooked and starting to brown a little at the edges, you can melt some cheese such as provolone or mozzarella as a finishing touch.
Make sure to use good bread. When it’s time to assemble the sandwich, rub the cut ends of the bread in the pan juices. Nigel says a good Bap should drip down your hands and arms when you eat it. I concur.
Great looking rex-veris! And I miss baps – used to live in London…A nice snack on the way home from the local.
I was hiking last week below Peshastin and saw a few old morels but no boletes. Every mushroom bump in the forest floor was a white russula – hundreds of them. What elevation were you finding the rex-veris, and what kinds of trees? I was on the Swauk Forest Trail which is mostly fir trees. Great blog.
Do you find spring porcinis to be less flavorfall than fall porcinis?
K Lambert – I’m itching to get back there and hike the coast to coast trail. Could be some good mushroom hunting along the way too. You might try different elevation for porcini, though the tree composition is good.
Anonymous – I like the firm texture of B. rex-veris and its floral aroma, which lends it to shaving raw over a salad (most wild mushrooms you should cook, btw). I’d say fall porcini has a richer, nuttier flavor. Both dry nicely.
A bap is originally a type of bread roll, really soft (with a crust kept from firming too much by a flour coating) but you can use the word to describe the sandwich itself, too. 🙂