It’s all about the ‘shrooms at The HWY this month. Well, not those kind of ‘shrooms. We’re talking porcini, oyster mushroom, enoki, portobello… the safely edible kind!
The Highway puts on Mushroom Month every year in celebration of everyone’s favourite fungi and, last week, we attended the official launch for Mushroom Month 2017.
Being offered a taste of the full menu, we sampled our way through three delicious courses fit for a fun-guy (sorry, we had to slip the pun in somewhere). The tasting session even included a unique mushroom dessert (?!?), which we write about a little further down the article!
Mushroom Month 2017 launch
We started with a warming Swiss Brown and Porcini Soup which was downright delectable and definitely winter must-have. The gloopy brown soup may not have won the prize for most attractive-looking dish, but it most certainly won hearts for its more-ish flavour.
Swiss Brown and Porcini Soup
Our second entree was the soft Terrine, combining oyster mushroom, shemeji, foie gras, celeriac puree and basil oil. This one was our favourite in terms of presentation.
Terrine
Onto mains: we dived head-first into the Pan-Fried Gnocchi, which was a professed favourite of the table. Pan-fried gnocci meant a delightfully crunchy exterior and velvety soft interior, served alongside garlic field mushroom, king brown mushrooms, creamy burnt butter sage sauce and crispy enoki mushroom. We went back for seconds, that’s for sure.
Pan-Fried Gnocchi
The Portobello Burger was our next main, with the mushroom patty being stuffed with gooey brie. Brioche bun, charred vegetable relish, egmont, butter lettuce and onion rings completed this dish. It was a pretty stock standard, classic combination that can’t go wrong, so it’s a good one for if you’re not sure about the whole mushroom thing and don’t want to be totally adventurous on your fungi journey.
The Portobello Burger
Our final main was a 200g Truffle-infused Beef Eye Fillet with duxelles and taleggio cannelloni, topped with juniper glaze. The meat was tender and soft, and the dish was overall rather filling, especially due to the addition of cannelloni.
200g Truffle-infused Beef Eye Fillet
Although we didn’t leave mush-room for dessert (ha ha), the Porcini, Coffee and Chocolate Parfait was the ultimate way to tie up our Mushroom Month experience. Porcini mushroom in a sweet dessert? Interesting combo, you say? Well, we’d definitely agree! We weren’t sure what to expect with this one… in fact, the idea of putting mushrooms into a dessert sounded a little berserk to us. However, in this particular dessert, the use of porcini mushroom actually complemented the coffee and chocolate flavour, with chocolate soil and peanut praline simply adding sweetness and rich flavour. A mixture of textures also made this dish a highly satisfying one.
Still don’t believe that mushroom works in dessert? Head into The HWY at 290 Anzac Highway to find out for yourself! Follow through to www.thehighway.com.au to find out more.
Porcini, Coffee and Chocolate Parfait
