Mushroom Fricassee with Red Wine from Priorat #WorldWineTravel

This Mushroom Fricassee recipe features a variety of mushrooms simmering a garlic mushroom sauce, with seitan added for protein. This vegetarian recipe pairs well with a bold red wine from Priorat.

Today we continue our tour around the wine regions of Spain with a visit to Catalonia, in the northeast corner of Spain. Our host for this event, Susannah from Avvinare, has an introductory post chockfull of good information about the region’s history, principal wine regions and more. I encourage you to visit her article and my colleague’s for deeper history and context. I’m going to focus on how I came up with today’s recipe for mushroom fricassee and the Priorat red wine we paired with it.

Jump to:

• Recipe inspiration
• Ingredient notes & other recipe tips
• What to serve with this recipe?
• Wine Pairing
• Recipe card
• More Recipes Like This
• World Wine Travel Catalonia articles

Recipe inspiration

Catalonia has a rich history and distinctive traditions that led it become designated an autonomous community within Spain. I’m going to set my government degree aside and skip the political aspects of this status, and jump to the food.

Food of Catalonia

The distinctive culture of Catalonia warrants its own cookbook. So I picked up a copy of The Catalan Kitchen to serve as our culinary guide to the region.

Perusing this cookbook, I learned that much of the beloved food in the region is enjoyed in pica pica style – people pick from an array of small bite sized portion of food. I can imagine in some other time enjoying pica pica somewhere in Barcelona with some good wine and some boisterous companions.

The Catalan Kitchen has an array of pica pica to start the book. That was interesting, but making 7 or 8 little dishes for the two grownups here didn’t seem like the way to go.

But the seed of an idea was planted, and we did order takeout this week from a great local Spanish restaurant around the corner from us. We let the folks at Pinxto Pincho do the work that enabled us to enjoy a pica pica style meal.

The empanadas, lamb albondigas (meatballs), and a simple offering of manchego cheese and marinated olives were highlights of the spread. Although inspired by my reading for today, this meal doesn’t qualify for today’s event. In fact, we enjoyed it with a Rioja Crianza, from the wine region we covered for last month’s event.

Not your typical fricassee

Much of the Catalan cooking features seasonal produce, and there are also a lot of offerings from the nearby Mediterranean Sea. Thumbing through the recipes in The Catalan Kitchen, many were ruled out for our family because it either entailed items that were on our allergy concern list (eggs and/or nuts) or came from the sea. Two out of the three of us here eat seafood; the song may say “two out three ain’t bad” but for our Catalan meal night I was aiming to serve all three of us.

A recipe for beef fricassee (fricandó de verdella) caught my eye. As the author explains, Catalans are more likely to prepare a fricassee of beef or veal, rather than the typical chicken in the classic French dish. And once you are cooking with beef, the white sauce associated with the classic dish goes out the window.

So last Saturday I set out to make beef fricassee, following the cookbook recipe fairly close to how it was presented. The recipe called for skirt steak or flank steak, and I went for the skirt option.

Simmering the beef along with mushrooms led to a very flavorful dish. However, I found the skirt steak cooked as suggested came out rather tough. Rather than present the recipe with steak as presented, I decided to try a different option. We had more luck with a Spanish wine / beef pairing when we made our Steak Picado recipe in March.

A vegetarian fricassee

The highlight of the first attempt at my Catalan offering for today was the mushrooms cooking with red wine and garlic. So I decided to lean into that flavor, and come up with a vegetarian mushroom fricassee recipe. Mission accomplished! Note you can skip the optional cheese and make this a vegan recipe.

The beef fricassee recipe started by briefly searing the steak, then setting it aside. For the vegetarian version, we started by searing portobello mushrooms slices in similar fashion.

Our recipe calls for dried mushrooms (porcini or shiitake) and button mushrooms along with the portobello. The liquid from reconstituting the mushrooms gets used in the cooking process — for this reason I prefer dried porcini mushrooms, as they give you a richer liquid.

Now, we could have left it at mushrooms and garlic as the principal ingredients and delivered plenty of flavor. But I also added some seitan, a wheat based protein source that has a meaty texture.

The combination of mushrooms and seitan definitely created a substantial vegetarian dish with potential to stand up to a big red wine, which is what we had waiting in the wings! And as you might have gathered from what I chose to present today, the mushroom fricassee definitely was our winner in the taste department, without event getting into nutritional considerations.

Ingredient notes & other recipe tips

Head down to the recipe card for the full instructions; but here are a few quick tips for making this mushroom fricassee come out great!

Porcini is our first choice: We give an option of dried porcini mushrooms or shiitake in the recipe card. Both worked in our testing, but we definitely prefer the richer liquid produced by the porcini.

Vary the mushrooms In addition to the dried mushrooms, we used portobello and basic button mushrooms. Feel free to substitute other wild mushrooms based on your tastes and what is available.

Try some fresh herbs We notice mushroom fricassee with fresh herbs is a popular theme on the web. We just used dried herbs, but definitely will try this again with some parsley or maybe tarragon.

Make vegan mushroom fricassee by skipping the cheese. We didn’t use too much cheese anyway, so this is an easy option to make the recipe vegan.

Cooking wine Sure, you could use a Priorat red wine for cooking if you want, but I prefer to save that for drinking! I keep moderately priced leftover wine on hand for cooking, and that does the trick.

What to serve with this recipe?

We enjoyed our mushroom fricassee served over mashed potatoes, and that was certainly delicious.

But if you want to stick with the Spanish theme, serving alongside patatas bravas is a natural choice. Recipes you could try for that are available from Culinary Adventures with Camilla and via Gwendolyn at Wine Predator.

Our Spanish Roasted Potatoes recipe is one more idea for serving.

A green salad or sautéed spinach with garlic rounds out this meal nicely.

Wine Pairing

There are ten DO or DOP regions to choose from in Catalonia, but I quickly gravitated toward the Priorat DOP.

Priorat is a small, mountainous wine region known for producing intense red wines. The wines are typically based on Garnacha and Cariñena, with some international grapes also in the mix. The climate is hot and dry, with a long growing season. That definitely was reflected in our wine pairing for the mushroom fricassee!

We opened the 2017 Cesca Vicent Priorat ($25 , 16% ABV) to go with our mushroom fricassee. We did get to try this wine twice, as we first had it along with the beef version of the dish.

On the nose of the dark ruby red Priorat, I get beach plums, blackberries and number 2 pencil. On the palate, black cherry fruit, notes of violet and oak. Firm tannins, dense mouthfeel.

The Cesca Vicent Priorat definitely seemed like one that would benefit from decanting. After about 45 minutes in the decanter, it became more approachable. This Priorat was a pleasing pairing for the fricassee. There aren’t too many vegetarian dishes I would serve with this wine, but this recipe is one that can stand up to it!

I was a bit daunted by the 16% ABV figure on the label, clearly a product of those hot, dry growing conditions. The wine is a reminder that while alcohol content is one factor in choosing a wine for a pairing, a well-made wine with high alcohol can still be enjoyable and a good match for the right dishes.

I did try another Priorat getting ready for this event. It has lower alcohol, and more notable acidity. When I needed another bottle for the remake of our recipe, I quickly went back to the Cesca Vincent.

The Priorat we tasted is made from a blend of 51% Garnacha, 20% Merlot, 11% Carignan, 11% Cabernet Sauvignon and 7% Syrah. The wine is certified organic.

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Recipe card

More Recipes Like This

Whether you stopped by looking for Spanish recipes, a love for mushrooms or hearty vegetarian meals, here are some more Cooking Chat recipes you might like:

Spanish

• White Bean Stew with Sausage
• Chicken Chilindron

Hearty Vegetarian

• Seitan Skillet with Peppers and Onions
• Seitan Rigatoni
• Vegetarian Sausage Pasta
• Fettuccine Primavera

Recipes featuring mushrooms

• Mushroom Farro with Ground Beef
• Salmon with Farro and Mushrooms

Check out our collection of Healthy Vegetarian Recipes for more ideas.

World Wine Travel Catalonia articles

• Allison and Chris from Advinetures look at Cava: Spain’s Answer to Champagne.
• Andrea from The Quirky Cork enjoys Tapas with Segura Viudas Brut Reserva Cava.
• Camilla from Culinary Adventures with Camilla shares Pollo a la Catalana + Alvaro Palacios Camins del Priorat 2019.
• David from Cooking Chat shines with Mushroom Fricassee and Red Wine from Priorat.
• Gwendolyn from Wine Predator brings Sparkling Wine Secrets: Catalonia Cava from Marqués de Cáceres with Spanish Chorizo Kale Bean Stew.
• Jeff from Food Wine Click! looks at Exploring the Variety of Still Wines from Catalunya.
• Linda from My Full Wine Glass showcases Pere Mata Cupada Rosé Cava: Finesse in a Glass.
• Lynn from Savor the Harvest posts Beyond Cava: Loxarel and Gramona Organic Sparkling Wines.
• Martin from Enofylz Wine Blog waxes poetic about A Taste of Can Descregut; Grower Spanish Sparkling Wine From The Corazón del Penedès.
• Melanie from Wining With Mel muses about Innovative Winemaking in Catalunya’s Penedès: Torres Gran Coronas Reserva.
• Nicole from Somm’s Table pens On a Hilltop in Priorat.
• Payal from Keep The Peas joins with Bartender’s Choice from Priorat.
• Robin from Crushed Grape Chronicles focused on Priorat DOQ in Spain’s Cataluña Region and Franck Massard’s 2015 Humilitat.
• Steve from Children of the Grape describes Cava by the Sea.
• Susannah from Avvinare thinks about Two Key Areas in Catalonia Wine Scene: Cava and Priorat.
• Terri from Our Good Life dished about Chicken Empanadas and Azimut Cava.
• Wendy from A Day in the Life on The Farm adds Enjoying Tapas with Spanish Wines from Catalonia.