Makenna Held‘s culinary journey is easily the most enviable we’ve heard: In 2016, Held bought (sight-unseen, by the way) La Pitchoune, Julia Child’s former home in Provence — and now she’s a cooking instructor and writer who takes her inspiration from her adopted country of France.
Want to experience a piece of Held’s dream without investing in international real estate? Reading her book Mostly French: Recipes From a Kitchen in Provence is the closest thing to buying a plane ticket to southern France. With recipes for dishes like roasted chicken with lemon and lavender salted caramels, the cookbook is inspiring, decadent, and dreamy, all at the same time.
How did Held develop her incredible recipe for roasted mushrooms? It started with a bit of location-based serendipity. “When I lived in Valbonne,” she writes, “I was lucky to live across from a restaurant where everything was cooked in a wood-fired pizza oven. The temperamental oven resulted in the most wonderful roasted . . . everything.”
That wood-fired oven was replaced — unfortunately for a very-disappointed Held — with a new, non-wood model. (The author says, “I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I was bereft.”) But Held had already developed a taste for the restaurant’s “utterly transcendent” roasted mushrooms with garlic butter. “They were our daughter Magnolia’s favorite food when she was eight months old,” she writes. “So I taught myself the closest version I could, without the need for wood fire. It’s not quite the same, but it’s very close.”
Since we don’t have a wood-fired oven, either, we’re very grateful that Held found a solution — and created a recipe for the most luxurious plant-based side, this side of the Seine.
Roasted Mushrooms with Escargot-Style Butter
Mis en place: 2 small mixing bowls, half-sheet pan, serving bowl
Serves 4-6
Ingredients
- 1 pound assorted large mushrooms, such as Baby Bellas and shiitakes, stems removed (reserve for stock)
- ¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) salted butter, at room temperature
- 1 bunch fresh parsley, finely chopped (about ½ cup)
- 6 garlic cloves, grated
- Olive oil
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 475°F. Clean the mushrooms by brushing off any dirt or debris with your hands. If you must, rinse them very quickly under water and then pat dry. The mushrooms must be dry, or else they will steam in the oven rather than roast.
- In a small mixing bowl, mash the butter, parsley, and garlic together until thoroughly combined. In another small mixing bowl, toss the mushrooms with a healthy glug of oil, which will help them brown. Transfer to a half-sheet pan, with the stemmed sides facing up. Using a small spoon, scoop the garlic butter into each mushroom.
- Place in the oven and immediately reduce the heat to 425°F. Roast until the mushrooms are browned, 10 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a serving bowl and serve immediately.
Excerpted from Mostly French: Recipes from a Kitchen in Provence. Copyright © 2025 Makenna Held. Photography by Emma Lee. Reproduced by permission of Simon Element, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. All rights reserved.
