Stuffed Mushrooms

Mushrooms are a type of edible fungus. Button, cremini, morale, shiitake, Portobello are types of mushrooms available locally and used in a wide variety of cuisines. Mushrooms are one of my favorite foods. I love the meaty texture and flavor. I was first introduced to mushrooms when I was at my grandma- mai’s place. She made a simple maharashtrian bhaji and called it “alimbi”. After that I have experimented with this magnificent fungus in pizzas, cream of mushroom soup (my mom loved it) and mushroom biryani (just like vegetable biryani, but loads of mushroom added at a later stage). I just love mushrooms on my sandwiches, pizzas, and soups, grilled in salads, curried with paneer or chicken, in pastas, filled in raviolis and as stuffed appetizers.
I came across the original recipe on food network website and have modified this to suit our taste. Satya loves this.
1 pack of button mushrooms
Italian bread crumbs
1 small shallot
2 Garlic cloves (yum...)
Olive oil (I use the extra virgin variety…it definitely tastes richer than the usual variety)
Mozzarella cheese
Salt and Pepper.
Clean the mushrooms thoroughly. Cut of the stems into tiny pieces. Dice the shallots into tiny pieces. Cut the garlic into tiny pieces. Heat a non-stick pan on medium-low flame, add olive oil to it.
Add the garlic pieces and brown it a little, do not burn them or it will taste bitter.
Add the shallots to this and cook till golden brown and tender. Add the cut mushroom stems to this. Stir this for few minutes; you will see that the stems lose water very quickly. Cook till tender and add salt and pepper to taste.
Let this mixture cool for a while.
Heat the oven to 350f. Grease the baking dish with a little olive oil so that mushrooms do not stick to it. Brush a little oil on the sides of the mushrooms too so they get tender and brown.
Add mozzarella cheese and little bread crumbs to the mixture and mix well. Invert the mushrooms top side down and fill up the caps with the mixture. Top of the caps with some bread crumbs. Drizzle a little olive oil on the top. Bake in the oven till the bread crumbs look a toasted golden brown to you. Serve with marinara sauce or just as it is. When you take a bite, the end product should have juices oozing from the sides, medley of garlic and tender shallot with cheese & Italian bread crumb flavored mushroom stems, with crisp topping of Italian bread crumbs. Enjoy!
Dipti