Mushroom Gravy

This is a good, general-purpose gravy; you can use chicken broth if you want it to go with a chicken dish, beef broth for a beef dish, or vegetable broth for a vegetarian version. If you want it vegan, substitute olive for the butter.

• 2 Tbsp unsalted butter
• 4 oz. mushrooms, chopped fine
• 0.5 yellow onion or 2 large shallots, chopped fine
• 1 cup stock (any flavour), heated
• 1 Tbsp. cornflour, blended with a little cold water
• Salt and black pepper

Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

Add the onion and mushrooms, season with salt and pepper, and fry gently until really well-browned—this will give colour and flavour to the gravy.

Add the stock to the saucepan, and bring it to a boil.

Add the blended cornflour and heat, stirring constantly, until thickened and smooth.

This works very well with regular brown (crimini) mushrooms, but you can get a quite different and rather wonderful effect using large shiitaki mushrooms instead.