Potatoes, Chanterelles, Shallots in Red Wine Sauce – Recipe
Potatoes, Chanterelles, Shallots in Red Wine Sauce
I’d been ruminating on how I was going to use these heirloom Rose Finn fingerling potatoes from our garden. My first thought was to glaze them in butter with shallots and preserved lemon. Then the whole plan changed when I was walking past our co-op and spotted a huge bin of beautiful local chanterelles.
Sometimes all of the chanterelles I can find are either half dried up, or else soggy and on the verge of rotting. Not these – they were plump and firm and fully arresting. My coworkers were a bit amused when I veered off from our afternoon coffee run directly into the store and returned to work with a big bag of mushrooms.
So: out with the preserved lemon, and in with a red wine pan sauce. I should cook like this more often. Ridiculously simple, earthy, rich, and delicious. A very French feel. I particularly liked having the potatoes in the dish, because after I ate all of the mushrooms and sweet shallots, I mashed the spuds into the sauce and mopped it all up.
Potatoes, Chanterelles, Shallots in Red Wine Sauce
Vegetarian and gluten-free
Serves 2 as a major side or up to 4 as a few bites; or me for my whole dinner
- 4 tablespoons butter, divided
- 2 cups small (or cut) fingerling potatoes
- 1 cup or more chanterelle mushrooms, thoroughly wiped clean
- 4 medium or 2 very large shallots, cut into large bite-size chunks
- 1/2 teaspoon minced fresh rosemary
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3/4 cup red wine
- minced fresh flat-leaf parsley
- black pepper
- In a medium skillet with a lid, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter over medium heat.
- Add the potatoes, mushrooms, shallots, rosemary and salt and toss to coat. Cook for about 8 minutes, trying to get a little browning going but without burning anything.
- Add 1/2 cup water, put on the lid, and reduce the heat to a simmer.
- Cook until the potatoes are tender, adding more water as needed to keep it from burning.
- When the potatoes are cooked, remove the top and raise the heat to cook off any remaining liquid.
- Remove all of the vegetables to a platter, and then deglaze the pan with the wine. Raise the heat to medium high. Scrape all of the browned bits (the fond) off of the bottom of the pan into the sauce. Break up the remaining butter and whisk it vigorously into the sauce, which should have a nice sheen. This whole step should take just a couple of minutes, reducing and thickening the sauce slightly.
- Spoon the sauce over the vegetables (either on a platter or individual plates), garnish with parsley and a grind of black pepper and serve.
First, I couldn’t be more jealous of your local chanterelles! And, second, the red wine sauce sounds fantastic.
Oh, this is heavenly looking.
I love how I have to look twice at the photo, cuz my cheffy brain just ASSUMES there’s a sausage in that heady mix somewhere. Don’t need it with good chanterelles, though, do you? Lovely, this.
Thanks Ivy! The chanterelles really do provide a lot of “meatiness”, for
lack of a better word. Actually, I really do need a better word for that
quality. Anyone?
Holy Yuminess! You could say the mushrooms add “richness”!?
You always make such beautiful dishes. This looks perfect for fall.
Mushroom burgundy. The rosemary is a perfect choice of herb for this. Very nice, Michael.
Oh, darn it — I wanted the preserved lemon recipe! I just made my first batch of preserved lemons (oh my god, why did it take me 30 years to discover that these existed???), and I’m just slowly learning how to use them to cook with.
You have turned the usual into unusual, nice idea!
That’s a great vegetarian recipe! Thanks for the yummy potato recipe.
This is one of those dishes that makes me praise heaven that there is someone out there who knows that vegetarians eat things other than lettuce. This looks SO good, I can practically smell it now.
Chanterelles have to be one of the best foods on the planet! Looks great. 😀
+Jessie
I think the “5th” Taste and perhaps a suitable substitute description for “meatiness” would be Umami. Any thoughts on this?
Hey Cordelia – I was speaking more of the texture, but flavor wise, yes, umami is indeed the right word.
I just made it – fantastic. We live out in Oregon and a friend picked some fresh from the woods for us. I changed it up a bit, using olive oil on the pan instead of butter – overall I used less butter, just for a healthier version, only adding a little butter for the sauce at the end. Excellent recipe, highly recommended.
Thanks, Ryan! I'm glad it was a hit and I'm sure it is good with part olive oil too. Man, if I had any chanterelles I'd go cook up a batch of that right now.
I’m really excited to try this recipe. I’m going to use earth balance instead of butter, so we’ll see how that is. But I’ve been vegan so long, I don’t even remember what butter tastes like! =)
I've never used Earth Balance for this, but a quick web search shows people using it in "beurre" blanc applications with success, so I suspect it will work fine. Let us know how it turns out!
This was just about one of the best tasting meals I have ever had. It felt entirely decadent and scrumptious. Thank you!
Good deal! Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Prepared this today for the second…A recipe that makes me go to it again and again
Actually I was about to type “for the second time”…but it got posted without time in it…we just had this for our dinner.
It is a wonderful vegetarian entrée.
Thanks fantastic recipe. Tommorrow i am going to try it out.
Parveen
This was great. There are no chanterelles around here just now, so I used crimini, cut in halves (or quarters for the slightly larger ones). And I discovered, 3/4 of the way through cooking, that I didn’t actually have that leftover red wine that I THOUGHT I had. Solution: replace the wine with a semi-dark beer. Turned out wonderful. If I were to make another change, it’d be to about double the shallots — they were good, but there were too few to balance the potatoes. Of course, I didn’t actually measure anything, so maybe I had too many potatoes to start with. 🙂
Nice! Your adaptations sound good. Using beer in the sauce reminds me of this dish: https://herbivoracious.com//2010/06/crisp-polenta-with-braised-cabbage-and-beans-recipe.html .Â
Does this have to be served with something like say white or brown rice?
No, I wouldn’t serve it with a grain. I think the potatoes already serve as a starchy element.
This looks fantastic! Can’t wait to lay my hands on some chanterelles!
I can’t describe how I felt while eating this — it was one of those out-of-body, one-with-the-blissful-deliciousness-of-the-universe experiences. I could easily have eaten every bite but managed to restrain myself and am enjoying the anticipation of a second sensory inundation!
Another reason to love chanterelles!