The air fryer never ceases to display its versatility. Stuffing a mushroom, as Shirley Conran famously once wrote, is something for which life is too short. She was really saying, in her book Superwoman, that women should not allow themselves to get bogged down with trivial matters.

Perhaps the air fryer plays ironically into that narrative, being a device that helps us to get things done quickly which once took much longer, saving everyone time. And these days of course it’s no longer presumed that it will be the woman of the home who sees to these things. Generally speaking.

This was a serendipitous moment. Having spied the beautiful brown mushrooms, perky and fresh, right beside them I spotted a punnet of lovely ripe leeks. All I needed after that was to buy a tiny tub of cream, and a supper of brown mushrooms stuffed with creamed leeks was under way.

The Langbaken Karoo Blue cheese I had in the fridge would be grated on top and melted, to finish them off.

The first and last steps of this recipe are done in the air fryer.

(Serves 4 as a starter or 2 as a light meal)

Ingredients

Olive oil

4 big brown mushrooms

3 medium leeks, washed and sliced

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

Water to cover

100 ml fresh cream

Salt and black pepper

200 g Langbaken Karoo Blue cheese or similar, grated/crumbled

Fresh herbs to garnish

Method

Preheat the air fryer to 180℃.

Use a small, sharp knife to cut out the stems, without cutting through to the mushrooms. Discard these.

Oil the underside of the mushrooms lightly, and put them in the air fryer, oiled side down. Pour a tiny drop of olive oil into the cavities of the upper sides.

Season with salt and black pepper.

Air fry at 180℃ for 3 or 4 minutes, just to get the mushrooms cooking a little. They will shrink somewhat.

Wash the leeks and slice them thinly.

Put them in a pot with the garlic and put it on the stove, season with salt and pepper, cover with water and cook on a moderate heat until most of the water has cooked away.

Add the cream and cook them down until the leeks are just coated with the remaining cream.

Spoon the leeks evenly into the cavities of the four mushrooms.

Grate the cheese and top the mushrooms with this evenly.

Put the mushrooms in the air fryer basket and cook at 180℃ until the cheese has melted and begun to turn golden. DM

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Writer 2023, jointly with TGIFood columnist Anna Trapido. Order his book, foodSTUFF, here.

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks.