Portobellos with Hummus
Portobellos with Hummus
If you are looking for a fun way to serve Portobello mushrooms you might want to give this a try. I love mushrooms and am always looking for a new way to serve them. All you do is take Portobello mushrooms caps, clean them up a bit, and saute them. Once the caps are cooked spoon in a mixture of hummus, cream cheese and roasted red pepper. At this point they go in the oven or under the broiler. You could even do this on the grill, but you won’t get the top browning. I made my own hummus and roasted a pepper but both of those ingredients could be purchased. Here is the recipe.
Portobellos with Hummus
2 tablespoons olive oil
6 small portobello mushroom caps, stems and ribs removed
1/2 cup cream cheese, softened
1 roasted red pepper, diced
3/4 cup hummus
Salt and pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Sear the portobello mushrooms for 3 minutes on each side until browned.
Stir together cream cheese, pepper, and hummus until evenly blended. Season the mushroom caps with salt and pepper on each side. Place the mushrooms onto a baking sheet, with the stem-side facing up. Then fill with hummus mixture. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes until the filling is hot.
Cheesy Portobello “Burgers”
Portobello Mushroom “Burger”
I had a chance to have a friend over for lunch. She is vegetarian. Neither of us had a lot of time so I wanted something fast and easy. I had a couple of portobello mushroom caps in the fridge so I used them as my starting point. I also had some whole wheat buns so a sandwich felt like the right choice. I don’t like to use the word burger. Burgers for me will always be meat, but it did end up pretty close. The flavors, appearance and feeling was pretty burger-like, if not a true burger.
I started by cooking some sliced onion in oil adding salt, pepper and some hot sauce. While the onions were cooking I rinsed the mushroom caps and gave them a drizzle of lemon-infused olive oil and white wine vinegar. Also gave them a dash of salt and some Italian seasoning. I would say I marinaded them, but seriously, it was for 10 minutes while the onions were cooking. Once the onions were getting almost caramelized I added the mushrooms to the pan with the liquids I had been soaking them in. I let them cook, turning a few times, until they were cooked and browning a little. By then most of the liquid in the pan was gone.
The biggest challenge with cooking any mushroom is water. They are full of it. To get a truly strong mushroom flavor you need to get that water out and intensify the mushroom’s flavor. Don’t be afraid to let them cook long enough for that to happen.
I finished the mushrooms off with a couple of slices of sharp white cheddar cheese. I also toasted the buns. To serve it I placed the cheesy mushrooms on the buns and topped each with some of the onions. It was a lunch I would make again, even for my non-vegetarian friends.
