I made some grouper for dinner last night, and was going to serve it with a shittake mushroom risotto (my default side for fish). But, I changed my mind and went with a simple lentil stew - a version of this, without the ham and potatoes and with about 1/3 the tomatoes - instead of rice. But that left me with a handful of unpurposed shittakes. Since the lentil stew was going to be nice and hearty, I thought maybe they'd be good if I just sautéed them in butter, and plopped them on top of the fish at the end. And so I chopped em up, along with a couple of plain white mushrooms I had lying around, dropped em into a little sauté pan with a healthy chunk of butter, some sage, black pepper and a bit of salt. I let them cook down till they were nice and soft and buttery and yummy.

But, next to the burner where the mushrooms were sizzling, sat the last little bit of a bottle of Bowmore 17 year. Hmm... I applied my usual test: put the prospective ingredient above the cooking food and smell them together. A perfect fit! Just a tablespoon of whisky into the mushrooms, let them sizzle for a few minutes more. to get rid of the alcohol... maybe a little more butter. Ahh, totally awesome. The mushrooms, the peaty, smoky whisky, the butter, lentils, thyme, sage, Swiss chard.... mmm. Scotch mushrooms. Awesome. I highly recommend giving this a try - it'd be great with steak, too, I bet.