Roasted button mushrooms and chickpeas with corned-up polenta

The baked mushroom mixture is full of beautiful rich, roasty toasty flavours, and the polenta is bright and zingy.

Roasted button mushrooms and chickpeas with corned-up polenta. Credit: Freshly Picked with Simon Toohey

• serves

  4

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  50 minutes

• difficulty

  Easy

Ingredients

Mushrooms

• 2 tbsp margarine
• 1 kg button mushrooms
• 1 brown onion, diced
• 4 garlic cloves, roughly sliced
• 2 thyme sprigs
• 70 ml white wine
• 1 tin cherry tomatoes
• 1 tin chickpeas (do not discard the liquid)
• 500 ml vegetable stock
• 2 tbsp soy sauce
• 1 tsp brown sugar
• Small bunch parsley, stalks finely chopped and leaves reserved
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 jar plant-based feta (optional)
• 2 lemons, zested
• Salt and pepper, to taste

Polenta

• 1.75 L oat milk
• 300 g polenta
• 3 tbsp margarine
• 2 cobs corn
• Salt and pepper to taste

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 160°C.
2. For the mushrooms, place the margarine and mushrooms into a baking tray along with diced onion and cook on the stovetop until nice and coloured. 
3. Add in garlic and sprigs of thyme and cook for 2 min then add the white wine. Cook until it is almost all gone. Add in the cherry tomatoes, chickpeas with liquid, stock, soy sauce, brown sugar, chopped parsley stalks and bay leaves, place in the oven uncovered and cook for 40 minutes.
4. In the meantime heat the milk on the stove on a heavy-based pan. When it comes to the boil rain in the polenta, constantly stirring. Turn the heat to medium-low, shave off the corn kernels and place in with the mixture. Keep stirring until the polenta is creamy and cooked, then finish with salt and pepper.
5. Place a big amount of polenta on the serving plate, top with the mushrooms once out of the oven and let cool for a bit then add crumbled pieces of feta if using. Sprinkle over the lemon zest and a few sprigs of parsley. Squeeze half a lemon over that along with some olive oil.

Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.