75 g walnuts
200 g very fresh chestnut mushrooms
Small bunch of flat-leaf parsley (about 25 g), leaves picked from the stems
Scrap of garlic (about 1/4 clove), finely grated or crushed, to taste
Juice of 1/2 lemon, or more to taste
100 ml extra virgin olive oil Sea salt and black pepper
Put the walnuts into a food processor and blitz until coarsely chopped. Add the raw mushrooms to the processor: if they are large, break them up with your hands as you put them in; small mushrooms can go in whole. Add the stalks as well, as long as they are clean. Blitz the mixture again to coarsely chop the mushrooms.
Scrape down the sides of the processor then add the parsley leaves, garlic, lemon juice and some salt and pepper. Blitz again, gradually trickling in the olive oil as you do so. Stop adding the oil when you have a thick, coarse purée, flecked with green from the parsley – you may not need the full 100 ml oil.
Taste the hummus and add more lemon juice, salt and pepper if you think it needs it. You can add more garlic too but I like this best when it doesn’t taste too strongly garlicky.
Note* For a slightly sweeter flavour, use whole, skin-on almonds, soaked for a couple of hours in cold water and drained, instead of the walnuts. If preferred, replace some or all of the parsley with basil.
Credits: River Cottage Much More Veg! by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is published by Bloomsbury ($45.00).
