- Spanish
Ciabatta toasts topped with sautéed wild mushrooms and hard-boiled egg is a gloriously simple tapa that pairs perfectly with a glass of sherry.
By
J. Kenji López-Alt
:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/kenji-lopez-alt-9e7ff3ba54e24328a853d774a05fd4b8.jpg "Mushroom and Crushed Egg Tapas (Tapas de Setas con Huevo) Recipe (1)")
J. Kenji López-Alt
Culinary Consultant
Kenji is the former culinary director for Serious Eats and a current culinary consultant for the site. He is also a New York Times food columnist and the author of The Food Lab: Better Home Cooking Through Science.
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Updated December 01, 2023
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Why It Works
- Drizzling the sliced bread with olive oil before broiling adds richness and encourages browning.
- Sourcing high-quality extra-virgin olive oil and flavorful mushrooms like black trumpet and maitake (hen of the woods) is crucial to the success of this simple, rustic dish.
If you were in Italy, you'd call thesebruschetta di funghi. In the English-speaking world, it's just plain old mushrooms on toast. So why am I calling it by the Spanishtapas de setas? I suppose it's got to do with its simplicity and its reliance on really really good olive oil, two trademarks of excellent tapas.
Though the word has come to encompass a wide variety of small Spanish-themed plates and bar snacks, it originally referred to slices of bread topped with simple toppings. In a bid for customers, Spanish sherry bars would try and out-top each other to get clients to come through their doors. Though these days the food has taken on a life of its own—in most cases eclipsing, or at least standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the drinks—there are still many parts of Spain in which tapas bars serve only one or two carefully crafted house specialties.
A couple years back, my wife and I walked across 100 kilometers' worth of the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim's trail that traverses Northern Spain and ends at Santiago de Compostela. Ok,shewalked. I struggled, dragged, and moped my way across, dealing with poorly-refrigerated-sausage-induced shivers, shoes that hadn't been replaced since freshman year of college, and curling up in a kiddie-sized sleeping bag at night, complete with a smiling giraffe emblazoned across the front (It was the only sleeping bag available at the only store that was open when we started our journey).
But redemption came in the form of food in the tapas haven of Logroño. We hopped from bar to bar, enjoying a glass of Rioja with a shrimp-stuffed mushroom here, or an as-rich-as-bacon cube of richly marbledIbericopork shoulder grilled over live coals there. Crispy grilled pig snouts were the specialty of one house, while the one next door was known for itspatatas bravas—fried potatoes in a spicy sauce with garlickyallioli.
It's a fine way to spend a night and a wonderful town to visit, but all we were left with when we left was some good taste memories, a minor stomachache (remnants of that poorly refrigerated sausage), and a bottle of extremely bright and grassy olive oil fromExtremadura. These days, both the olive oil and stomachache are long gone (though I had flashbacks to the latter from a recently ingested IKEA hot dog), but I still love really simple, really tasty tapas.
This dish—sautéed mushrooms flavored with a bit of thyme, garlic, and shallots on top of grilled bread with some crushed hard-boiled egg—is nothing special on paper, but it's quick, easy, and insanely delicious. It also relies wholly on the quality of your mushrooms and olive oil. Get the fanciest mushrooms you can from the specialty grocer, and break out your heavy-duty, extra-strength, bright, green and grassy olive oil for this one.
A side of sherry should help things out too.
March 2012
Recipe Details
Mushroom and Crushed Egg Tapas (Tapas de Setas con Huevo) Recipe
Prep5 mins
Cook20 mins
Active10 mins
Total25 mins
Ingredients
- 2 large eggs
- 4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for serving
- 2 large slices of rustic bread, such as ciabatta
- 1/2 pound mixed cleaned wild mushrooms (such as hen of the woods, black trumpet, or oyster)
- 1 medium clove garlic, minced on a microplane grater (about 1 teaspoon)
- 1 small shallot, finely chopped (about 1 tablespoon)
- 1 teaspoon picked thyme leaves
- 1 teaspoon juice from 1 lemon
- Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
Directions
Place eggs in a medium saucepan and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil over high heat, cover with a lid, and set aside for 10 minutes.
Drizzle bread slices with half of olive oil. Broil until lightly charred. Set aside.
Meanwhile, heat remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed skillet over high heat until smoking. Add mushrooms and cook, stirring and tossing occasionally, until well browned on all sides, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, shallot, and thyme and cook, stirring constantly, until fragrant, about 15 seconds. Add lemon juice and toss to coat. Off-heat, season mushrooms with salt and pepper. Transfer to a small plate.
Peel eggs and crush with your hands. Top each slice of toast with mushrooms and crushed eggs. Drizzle with extra olive oil as desired and serve.
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