Portobellos are gourmet mushrooms. Right?
Actually…no.
Portobellos are poseurs. They are just your common Agaricus bisporus (button) mushroom with good PR. Who knew?
It turns out that until the 1980s, those big beefy mushrooms we now call portobellos were the overly-mature culls that more often found their way into the compost pile than onto the dinner plate. Today, those same mushrooms command premium prices–$14 a pound at Amazon Whole Foods right now!
So…what in the heck happened here?
To put it bluntly, elderly common mushrooms got the Cinderella treatment.
As is true so often in life, timing was everything. In the 1980s, the food world was experiencing an “eat your broccoli” healthy food moment. Seeing that unfold, the mushroom industry seized that moment to introduce the portobello. To make it happen, marketing experts (Don Draper?) were enlisted to sell the heretofore mushroom discards to the general public as healthful delicacies. Ingenious! No?
Along the way, the mushroom promoters experimented with names: Portobello? Portobella? Portobella? Today, those names are used interchangeably. They also promoted the brown portobellos as a healthier (albeit more earthy-appearing) alternative to the pristine younger white button mushroom strain of Agaricus bisporus that had dominated the market since they were popularized in 18th Century France.
But how? The public had to be sold on the deep musty flavor and scent of the “new” mushrooms. (As mushrooms mature, they lose some of their water content and the flavor of the mushroom intensifies.) The PR men pulled that one off brilliantly. The portobellos were promoted as having a “picked fresh from the forest floor” scent and taste. You’ve gotta respect the sheer chutzpah of that “forrest floor” line!
The growing health food conscious public (literally) ate it up. Today, portobello mushrooms make up a substantial part of the billion dollar U.S. mushroom industry.
I’m a portobello fan. I’m first in line to enjoy a juicy grilled portobello as a main or on a bun. Sometimes, though, I long for preparations that take the mushrooms in new directions. This innovative portobello mushroom recipe, Portobello Mushroom Steaks And Butter Bean Mash, fits that bill perfectly.
Portobello Mushroom Steaks And Butter Bean Mash
Ingredients
- Portobello Mushroom Steaks
- 8 medium to large portobello mushrooms (stems removed)
- 10 garlic cloves (peeled)
- 1 onion (peeled and cut into 6 wedges)
- 4 1/2 t. chipotle flakes (or to taste)
- 1 red chile (or to taste)
- 4 t. cumin seeds (crushed)
- 1 T. coriander seeds (crushed)
- 2 T. tomato paste
- 1 2/3 C. olive oil
- 1 T. flaked sea salt
- Butter Bean Mash
- 2 2/3 C. cooked butter beans
- 4 1/2 t. fresh lemon juice
- 1 T. olive oil
- 2 T. water
- 1/2 t. flaked sea salt
- Garnish of cherry tomatoes, parsley or cilantro
Directions
- Step 1 Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Step 2 Stir mushrooms, garlic, onion, chile flakes, red chile, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, tomato paste, olive oil and salt together in a large oven-proof sauce pan. After letting the mushrooms marinate in the garlic-onion-oil mixture for a few minutes, remove the mushrooms from the mixture and arrange, domed side up, on top of the garlic-onion mixture. Cover with a sheet of parchment paper and then cover with a lid. Bake in the oven for 1 hour. After one hour, turn the mushrooms over and re-cover with the parchment paper and lid. Bake for 20 more minutes. You want to be careful not to over bake the mushrooms. You want them to be tender but you don’t want them to be falling apart. Remove the baked mushrooms from the pan and cut each mushroom in half. Set aside.
- Step 3 Spoon the onion-garlic mixture into the bowl of a food processor (reserving the oil) and process until you have a smooth sauce. You can add a bit of the reserved oil to your sauce in the food processor to get the sauce to the consistency you want.
- Step 4 Return the mushroom halves and the onion-garlic sauce to the saucepan and heat (medium high) for about 5 minutes.
- Step 5 To prepare the butter bean mash, puree the beans in the bowl of your food processor along with the lemon juice, olive oil, water and salt. You want a completely smooth bean puree. Transfer the pureed mixture to a saucepan and heat over medium-high heat until heated through. This should take about 3 minutes.
- Step 6 Spread the butter bean mash on a serving plate (or on individual plates). Top with mushroom halves. Spoon the sauce over the mushrooms. Spoon some of the reserved oil over the dish, garnish with cherry tomatoes, parsley or cilantro and serve.
This recipe is adapted from one that appears in Yotam Ottolenghi’s new cookbook, Flavor. The book is excellent and is available on Amazon and in your local bookstores.
