Asian Mushroom Omelette

This Chinese Asian mushroom omelette serves four people and is packed full of delicious mushrooms in a mixture of textures. I use a lot of enoki mushrooms which are one of my favourites as they cook down easily and I love the slippery texture. Same for the oyster mushrooms. The shiitakes are there for a stronger flavour and meatier texture.

While running errands the other day I walked past a store that had a gorgeous dress in the window. It was a store that was known for its tight fitting dresses and small sizes and mindful of the toasted cheese and salami sandwich that I had gleefully eaten with much savour just half an hour before I sucked in my breath, steeled my back and walked into the store.

I managed to just find a dress in my size - a surprise as this store doesn't stock anything above a certain size and they seem to specialise in a particularly torturous lycra torniquet type of material that makes you feel as though you were slipping into a sausage skin two sizes too small. How one manages to fit in that material and not get makeup smudged off and their earrings popped off must be some sort of sartorial miracle.

The saleswoman was great though and bless her heart she asked me what my size was instead of just guessing it and making a judgment call. I ended up trying about a dozen dresses on. Not because I wanted to but she kept bringing them to me. I was tossing up between two dresses to wear to my birthday dinner and I favoured one over another. I was however right between two sizes. There wasn't a huge difference and they were both tight and it's not as if I could eat a burger.

She regarded me in a contemplative way. She suggested that I should get the slightly larger one if I were going out to dinner or the smaller one if I weren't. I thought about it for a nano-second - of course I was going to eat dinner!

I thought that the dress was good motivation to eat healthily. I have the tendency to burrow under salami and cheese toasties during winter (really, you can find me if you follow the aroma of toast) and I realised that while that gave me quick satisfaction, I should probably balance it with something like this.

The omelette is easy, healthy and filling which is just what I need when I see that dress hanging up. Torturing me...

So tell me Dear Reader, when you buy clothes do you go up or down a size? And do you ever buy smaller as motivation for losing weight?

Asian Mushroom Omelette

An Original Recipe by Not Quite Nigella

Serves 4 as part of a banquet

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: 10 minutes

• 2-3 teaspoon oil
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and diced
• 1/4 cup sliced green onions
• 600g/21.ozs. enoki mushrooms, cut halfway down (where they separate)
• 150g/5ozs. oyster mushrooms, sliced
• 125g/4ozs. fresh shiitake mushrooms, sliced thinly
• 3 tablespoons chicken or vegetable stock
• 2 tablespoons oyster sauce or vegetarian version
• 4 eggs
• spring onion, thinly shredded and coriander
• 1-2 teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
• salt and pepper to taste

Step 1 - Heat a little oil in a frypan on medium heat and cook the garlic and spring onions for a minute until fragrant. Add the mushrooms. I find that the enoki mushrooms fry well by themselves but the shiitake needs a little liquid so add the stock and oyster sauce. It will take about 5 minutes to cook the mushrooms. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from the pan and set aside in a bowl.

Step 2 - Whisk the eggs together. Add a bit more oil to the pan and add the egg mixture spreading it out to all of the sides. When cooked, slide out onto a large plate and fill with the mushrooms. Sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds and serve with the spring onion and coriander.