Lately I have been terribly busy preparing for a Dutch holiday (on the 5th of December) and after that straight away preparing for the coming holidays, being Christmas. This requires not only decorating the house, one of the highlights of my year, but also thinking about special dishes that fit the festivities.

Now this one , I think fits the profile! Hamburgers made of oyster mushrooms on top of ovenroasted Jerusalem artichokes with a dot of aioli on top. An utterly simple dish but oh my word, só incredibly good.

Now it may me simple but you do have to prepare three days in advance:

You start by cutting up the oyster mushroom into small pieces.

Cover a muffin baking sheet with some clingfilm, fill each muffin hole with the cut up mushrooms. Fill them up to the top and press firmly. Cover with clingfilm, place a wooden cutting board (or something else heavy) on top and store in a dark cool place for at least three days. I placed mine in the cellar, but a fridge will also work.

After three days the oyster mushrooms will have “grown” together, they have become firm “burgers” without anything added to them. The only thing that is needed was time! I think this is one of nature’s many wonders to provide us with good food.

You fry them in some vegetable oil, three minutes for each side, season with salt, pepper, grated ginger, minced garlic, soy sauce with sesame seeds, the choices are endless.

I used nothing but black pepper for this dish!

Then comes part two: the Jerusalem artichokes, which by the way is a much more attractive name than the Dutch name. In Dutch we call them “aardpeer”, if you would translate that literally you’d get “earthpear”. Why we call them like that is beyond me when you look at its origin and its Latin name, but that is an entirely different story.

I peeled the Jerusalem artichokes and cut them in fairly thin slices, placed them on a baking tray, seasoned them with dried thyme, black garlic, sea salt, black pepper and some olive oil. Baked them in a preheated oven 190℃ for 40 minutes.

Then stir fried a white onion and a red chili pepper, “sprinkled” that on top of the Jerusalem artichokes and on the side, on top of that the fried mushroom burgers, sprinkled some fresh cut flat parsley leaves and finished it with a teaspoon of aioli. True bliss!