Wild Mushrooms Salad With Fried Croutons and Greens

This tasty salad is a celebration of summer. Hope you will enjoy it. 

Ingredients for 2 servings:

For the croutons:

·         3 slices of stale bread

·         3Tbsp olive oil

·         1 Tbsp butter

·         1 garlic clove

For the fried mushrooms:

·         1 pound (500 g)  assorted wild mushrooms

·         3 Tbsp olive oil

·         3 Tbsp butter

·         1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped

·         3 garlic cloves 

·         1 tsp salt

For the salad greens:

·         1 lettuce, torn

·         1 handful arugula, torn

·         4 Tbsp balsamic vinegar

·         1 Tbsp oil

·         1 tsp freshly ground pepper

+ 1 fried egg (optional)

Preparation:

Prepare croutons

Rub generously bread on both sides with one of the garlic cloves and cut into cubes. Put oil into a sauté pan and heat over medium heat. Add butter and the bread cubes. Fry until cubes get golden, stirring occasionally (about 6-7 minutes). Remove from the pan and put onto a sheet of kitchen towel  to drain the excess fat.

Fry the wild mushrooms

Put olive oil and butter into the pan where you prepared croutons and add such amount of mushrooms to cover the bottom of the pan (you will probably need to prepare them into two batches). You can use any variety of mushrooms for the salad, but the most important thing is to make them fried, not steamed, which will be the result if you put too many mushrooms at once. Sprinkle with salt and thyme and fry mushrooms until they get crispy around the edges, about 10 minutes. Two minutes before you take them from the pan, add the 3 garlic cloves to release their aroma. Set aside.

Dress salad and assemble

Mix balsamic vinegar with the Tbsp of oil. Put chopped salads into a bowl, add dressing and mix well. Transfer to a serving plate, place the fried mushrooms and croutons above, sprinkle with freshly ground black pepper and some additional salt if needed.

Serve with a glass of cold white wine. If you like, you can add a hot fried egg to every portion of fried mushrooms salad – according to me egg makes it even taste better.