Stuffed Cheesy Mushrooms
I made up this recipe the way I make up most recipes - by having an idea of what I (or in this case, Nora) wanted to eat, looking up recipes online and finding that I had many of the ingredients already and of the ingredients that I did not have, I could substitute others, which would result in something a bit different but otherwise still delicious.
Here are the recipes I looked at:
The method I followed was ultimately closest to the "Inspired Taste" one, in that I didn't use any cream cheese, just grated Gouda (really any melty cheese would do, except perhaps something like Mozzarella which would probably form one rubbery lump that falls off the mushroom).
Some recipes cook the mushrooms by putting them in an oven on an oven tray and some cook them in a cast iron (or carbon steel) pan. For some reason things that I cook in my heavy carbon steel pan caramelise and brown really nicely, so I used that. This recipe probably works fine if you use a baking sheet/oven tray or a stainless steel pan though. It is likely that the cheese will melt and stick to whatever you are using to cook with. Don't use anything non-stick.
I also noticed that most of these recipes involved putting panko bread crumbs on top, which would give the topping a crunchy crust. I didn't have any so I topped them with grated parmesan. For added flavour, I also mixed in spring onions and a generous portion of dried herbs into the topping mix. The dried herbs were from jars - you can probably make this with fresh finely chopped herbs, which I suspect will make it taste even better.
In addition to chestnut mushrooms, I also had two portobello mushrooms (originally the goal was to cook portobello mushrooms but there were literally only two left at the supermarket). Despite the difference in size, they also turned out well after cooking for the same amount of time as the chestnut mushrooms.
Ingredients
- 1 box of medium sized closed cup chestnut mushrooms (300g?)
- 125g grated jong belegen gouda (or medium cheddar)
- grated parmigiano reggiano
- 3 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 2 spring onions, chopped finely, with the green and white parts in separate piles
- dried thyme
- dried sage leaves
- dried coriander
- dried parsley
- dried rosemary (I didn't use this, but I wanted to)
- black pepper, to season
- salted butter
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius.
- Prepare the mushrooms. Brush off any dirt from the mushrooms with kitchen paper. Twist off their stems, which should leave a little space in which to put the filling. Since the filling is going to melt and spread out, if you want to maximise the amount of filling you could carefully cut out a little bit more of the mushroom to make space.
- Put the grated gouda (or Cheddar, or something similar) into a large mixing bowl.
- Fry the white parts of the spring onions and the crushed garlic in salted butter, in a pan until cooked. You could use the cast iron/carbon steel pan or another pan for this. It's really up to you. Scrape the cooked spring onion, garlic and butter into the mixing bowl with the cheese.
- Add the green parts of the spring onions, the dried herbs and plenty of black pepper to the mixing bowl. I've left the quantities blank here - if you're not sure, add a teaspoon of each of the herbs, mix everything up and add more if you want. Taste it. It should be delicious.
- If there is any residual oil or butter on the pan, then keep it there. Otherwise add a bit of olive oil. Arrange the mushrooms on the cast iron/carbon steel pan or a baking sheet. Put some of the topping mixture into the cavity on top of each mushroom. Put some grated parmesan on top of the topping mixture.
- Get the pan nice and hot on the stove. Once the bottoms of the mushrooms are starting to cook, put the pan in the oven. Cook for about 15 minutes.