Tomas Kowalski, Head Chef at Brighton’s Food for Friends, shares his recipe

Tomas says that this dish is so popular at Food for Friends that there are some customers who come to the restaurant every week for their “portobello fix”.

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Ingredients (Serves 6-8)

• 4 small or medium sweet potatoes, cut into quarters

• 2 sprigs of rosemary, finely chopped

• 2 tbsp olive oil

• 25g butter

• 4 decent-sized portobello mushrooms

• 4 tbsp crème fraiche

For the pistachio pesto:

• 1 large bunch of basil leaves

• 50g pistachios (shelled weight)

• 50g parmesan-style vegetarian cheese, grated

• 1 clove of garlic, crushed and chopped

• 100ml olive oil

• salt and pepper

For the feta stuffing:

• 300g feta, crumbled

• 50g pine nuts

• 1 medium bunch of basil, chopped

• 1 sprig of rosemary, leaves finely chopped

• 50g drained sun-dried tomatoes from a jar, very finely chopped

• freshly ground black pepper

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Method

1 Preheat the oven to 200°C/gas mark 6. Toss the sweet potato wedges in a bowl with the chopped rosemary and olive oil and put them into an oven dish. Cook them for 25 minutes and check them a couple of times; move them around so that they cook evenly.

2 Put all the feta stuffing ingredients in a bowl and mix them together, then put to one side. Blend all the pesto ingredients together with a hand blender (or use a mortar and pestle) and set the pesto aside as well.

3 As soon as the wedges are ready take them out. Cover the dish with foil and keep it somewhere warm. Increase the oven temperature to 220°C/gas mark 7.

4 Remove the stalks from the mushrooms. Melt the butter in a frying pan. When it is hot, fry the portobello mushrooms for two minutes on either side.

Take them out of the pan and fill with the feta stuffing. Then place them on an oiled baking sheet and cook in the oven for 8–10 minutes, by which point they should be golden brown on the top.

5 To serve, put the mushrooms on warmed plates with the sweet potato wedges and vegetables of your choice – we like to serve them with steamed fine green beans. Drizzle the pesto around the mushrooms and add a spoonful of crème fraiche to each plate. Serve immediately.