Recipes Using Portobellos

Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

Cream Of Cremini Soup

This is a swell soup with regular button mushrooms; it's an excellent soup with creminis. Portobellos would be great, too, but it's a waste of money to pay extra for their firmness and then puree them.

Ingredients:

12 ounces cremini (little portobello) mushrooms
1 medium onion
4 Tbs. (1/2 stick) butter or margarine
1/4 cup flour
2 (10-1/2-ounce) cans condensed beef consomme
2 soup cans water
dash hot pepper sauce
1 cup heavy cream
2 Tbs. sweet marsala wine, optional

Preparation:

Clean the mushrooms and chop them coarsely. Peel and slice the onion.

Heat the butter in a soup pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they have lost pale color, then remove about 1/2 cup and set aside. Add the sliced onions and continue to cook, stirring, until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms have softened.

Lower the heat to medium-low, stir in the flour and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add the first can of consomme in thirds, stirring, and let the mixture thicken and smooth before adding the next third. Gradually stir in the remaining can of consomme and the 2 cans of water; add the hot pepper sauce. Bring to the boil, lower the heat and simmer, covered, about 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Working in batches, puree the hot soup in a food processor or (preferably) a blender, whirling the mixture long enough to make the soup smooth. Little black flecks of color will remain, but the texture should be smooth.

Return the soup to the pot. Stir in the cream and the reserved mushroom pieces, heat through — don't boil — and add the marsala just before serving.

8 servings.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories 186
Carbohydrates 8 g
Protein 5 g
Fat 15 g, including sat. fat 9 g
Cholestero l49 mg
Sodium 580 mg
Calcium 33 mg
Dietary fiber 1 g
Diabetic exchanges per serving: 1/2 bread/starch exch., and 3 fat exch.

Barley Risotto with Asparagus and Portobellos

If you're a purist, you won't call a dish risotto if it isn't made with rice. But this barley dish has all the other earmarks of risotto, including the lengthy method of adding the liquid a little at a time. The asparagus is a seasonal ingredient; toss in whatever you like. The slivered almonds aren't necessary, but are very tasty. Leaving out the portobello chunks would be a sin against nature.

Ingredients:

12 ounces portobello mushrooms
1 medium onion
2 cloves garlic
3 (10.5-ounce) cans condensed chicken broth
3 soup cans water
6 Tbs. olive oil, divided
2 cups pearled barley (not quick-cooking)
1 lb. thin asparagus
about 1/3 cup slivered almonds, optional
1 cup (4 ounces) grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. freshly ground pepper
dash hot pepper sauce
1 Tbs. butter

Preparation:

Clean the mushrooms and slice or break them into bite-size chunks. Peel and chop the onion. Peel and press or mince the garlic. In a medium saucepan, bring the chicken broth and water to a simmer; keep warm.

While the broth is heating, in a soup pot or Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of the oil over medium-high heat, add the mushroom pieces and cook, stirring, 4 or 5 minutes, until they are almost tender. Remove them from the pot and set them aside.

Heat the remaining oil in the pot, add the sliced onions and cook, stirring, over medium-high heat. After a minute, lower the heat to medium, add the garlic and continue to cook and stir another few minutes until the onions are translucent. Stir in the barley and cook 1 more minute.

Lower the heat to medium-low. Add about a cup of the hot broth to the barley mixture and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture is thick and the broth is almost completely absorbed. Repeat, adding hot broth when the previous addition is almost completely absorbed (every 5 minutes or so — adjust heat under the barley if it's taking much less time or much more). When all the broth is in, the barley should be a little on the chewy side of tender.

Sometime during the long process of adding the broth to the barley, break off the woody ends of the asparagus, rinse the stalks and cut them into 1-inch pieces — or a little shorter near the thick ends of the stalks. Bring a pot of water to the boil and cook the asparagus pieces 2 or 3 minutes to brighten the color; drain, plunge them into cold water to stop the cooking and drain again.

Also while the barley cooks, if using the almonds, toast them in a frying pan over medium-low heat, stirring frequently, until they begin to color and become fragrant, about 7 minutes. Pour them out of the pan immediately and set aside to cool.

When all the broth has been added to the barley, stir in the asparagus and mushrooms. Cook a few minutes longer until the barley is tender. Add the cheese, pepper, hot pepper sauce and butter and stir well to melt cheese and butter. Stir in the almonds or pass them for guests to add.

Serves 8 as a side dish.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories 403
Carbohydrates 46 g
Protein 17 g
Fat 18 g, including sat. fat 5 g
Cholestero l14 mg
Sodium 950 mg
Calcium 215 mg
Dietary fiber 10 g
Diabetic exchanges per serving: 3 bread/starch exch., 1 medium-fat meat exch., and 2 1/2 fat exch.

Portobello Quiche

Creamy, musky, simple, wonderful ...

Ingredients:

3/4 cup heavy cream
3/4 cup sour cream
one 9-inch pie crust
6 ounces portobello mushrooms
1 medium onion
2 Tbs. butter
3 eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
dash pepper
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese

Preparation:

Put the sour cream in a medium bowl and stir in the heavy cream until well mixed. Set aside.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prick bottom and sides of pie crust with a fork. Bake 3 minutes, puncture any bulges with a fork and bake another 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Reduce oven temperature to 375 degrees.

Meanwhile, clean the mushrooms and slice or break them into chunks. Peel and slice the onion.

Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring, until they have lost pale color, add the sliced onions and continue to cook, stirring, until the onions are translucent and the mushrooms have softened.

In the small bowl of the mixer, beat together the eggs and the cream mixture. Stir in the salt, pepper and cheese and the mushroom mixture, and pour into the partly baked crust. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a knife inserted in the center comes out almost clean. Allow to rest 15 minutes before serving.

Serves 6 to 8.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories 304
Carbohydrates 12 g
Protein 9 g
Fat 25 g, including sat. fat 13 g
Cholesterol 140 mg
Sodium 340 mg
Calcium 180 mg
Dietary fiber 1 g
Diabetic exchanges per serving: 1 bread/starch exch., 1 medium-fat meat exch., and 4 fat exch.

Plated Cremini/Portobello Appetizer

This is just a little arrangement of musky roasted creminis or portobello slices, set in puddles of lovely, luxurious, have-it-once-a-year warm beurre blanc, which is almost nothing but butter. The sauce is a little fussy to make, but it's wonderful! Normally it contains white wine, which would be fine. But the Japanese rice wine, sake, which is used in many Japanese sauces, goes beautifully with the musky mushrooms.

Note: This is about the smallest amount of beurre blanc you can make; you'll have about half of it left over. Chill it and use it on hot vegetables as seasoned butter.

Ingredients

6 to 8 ounces cremini mushrooms or sliced portobellos
1 Tbs. olive oil or melted butter
2 Tbs. rice wine vinegar or white wine vinegar
2 Tbs. sake or white wine
1 Tbs. finely minced shallots
dash pepper
3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) cold butter, cut into 1-Tbs. pieces

Preparation:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Clean the mushrooms, brush them with the oil or butter and put them on a baking sheet. Roast about 20 minutes, until tender. (You can also broil, grill or saute the mushrooms. In any case, let them cool.)

In a small saucepan, boil the vinegar, wine and shallots until the mixture has reduced to little more than 1 or 2 syrupy tablespoons. Remove from the heat and allow to cool 2 minutes. Add the pepper. Meanwhile, set out 4 dessert plates.

Beat in 2 pieces of the butter. As the butter begins to cream into the shallot mixture, add another piece. Over the very lowest heat, beating continuously, add a piece of butter each time the previous one has nearly disappeared into the sauce. The sauce will be thick and creamy. If it even begins to look like melted butter, remove from the heat immediately and stir in an extra piece of cold butter.

Remove from the heat as soon as all the butter is beaten in and immediately pour it out of the hot pan onto the plates, making midsize puddles. (You'll probably have lots left. See Note.) Arrange the cooled mushrooms on the sauce; serve immediately.

If the sauce turns into melted butter while you're making it, you can serve it that way (it just won't be creamy). Or: Put an empty bowl in the freezer for a few minutes. Take it out, and then pour a few tablespoons of the separated sauce into the cold bowl, beat until it becomes creamy, and very slowly beat in the rest of the sauce.

Serves 4.
Nutrition information per serving:
Calories 197
Carbohydrates 3 g
Protein 1 g
Fat 21 g, including sat. fat 11 g
Cholesterol 47 mg
Sodium120 mg
Calcium 9 mg
Dietary fiber 1 g
Diabetic exchanges per serving: 1 vegetable exch., and 4 fat exch.

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service.)