In 1975 Shirley Conran famously said, “Life is too short to stuff a mushroom.” The quote was of course about the expectations on women to be superwomen and ‘have it all’. Today, in a purely culinary context, I decided to coin a new phrase: Life is too short to make an egg white omelette. Have you ever made or eaten one? Perhaps, like tofu, egg white omelettes are simply a vehicle for carrying other flavours. But why bother dressing up a pale imitation, when you can have the real thing? It’s a bit like vegetarian sausages or soy cheese; a contradiction in terms. You really can’t have it both ways.

The only reason I cooked up an anaemic, tasteless, fluffy white concoction was because I had four egg whites left over from making a super rich pistachio ice cream at the weekend that called for egg yolks, cream, sugar, pistachios and rose water. It was rather good, if a little too sweet, and combined the floral flavours of Turkish delight with a subtle nuttiness. Never mind that my nephew thought it was brown bread ice cream!

But back to mushrooms and stuffing them. I disagree with Shirley. I used to do a stuffed mushroom dish with diced bacon, tomato, parsley, wine, breadcrumbs and cheese. It was easy an easy dish to throw together and tasted delicious. The only problem is that I lost the recipe years ago. Anyone got anything similar in their repertoire?