Vegan "Stuffed" Portobello Mushroom Recipe (+ pictures)

So I started with this recipe, but of course there's no wine in my house and we're somehow out of garlic (WTF! If you've ever eaten food you know this is a cardinal sin), so I'll just list the mods. This probably won't make any sense unless you're also looking at the recipe, FYI.

Oh! I took pictures: I've been trying for ages to get the hang of food photography. Of course, I really should have started off with something automatically delicious like a cupcake. Oops.

You may not want to look at these pictures while you're eating.

I was kind of weirded out by the injunction to mix oil and soy sauce, since the latter's water-based. In the end I just dropped the cap into the mix and sloshed it around, before discovering that this didn't work nearly as well as just using a spoon to cover the mushroom cap. Either way, turns out this is a good combination both flavor and non-drying-out wise.

Scraping out the gills is pretty easy to do. (Cutting off the stem was actually more awkward, as I had to hold it sideways and hope that the mushroom wouldn't get smushed and my fingers would remain intact.) Anyway, fungi are super soft so in general, a lot easier than, say, bell peppers.

Last time I made stuffed mushrooms with Beth, the recipe said to peel off the top layer. It's kind of fun to do--you just grab the little curved edge and lift--so I figured I'd try it here.

Verdict: stupid.

Here's what the mushroom looked like after being baked with the olive oil/soy sauce combination. Past experiences have taught me to not care too much about mixing, as it turns out flavors really do mix in your mouth.

Also, you know...lazy.


For the sauteeing part, I used some fresh pineapple mint leaves (one of the other recipes I looked at recommended pineapple sage, so I figured why the hell not) and added black pepper. I keep trying rosemary on stuff even though the taste reminds me of soap...eh. I didn't use that much, so not a big deal.

Turns out that if you toss fresh leaves into hot oil, they can go flying as much as ten feet. Who knew!

I was surprised at the recommendation to put in the salt last, but I did it anyway. Whatever.


So here's why you don't peel off the top of the mushroom, and also not get annoyed enough by a lack of garlic to toss an entire small onion and half a bell pepper into the mix:

After all the cooking and stuff...I had serious doubts. I mean, ...eeeeek. (Turns out the baking reduced the volume, otherwise it was a serious heap, at least 2 inches above the surface of the mushroom.)

It was actually pretty good, though! Yay! (Because there's nothing else in the house I wanted to eat for lunch.)


Verdict: Surprisingly, worth the time and effort. Cleanup wasn't too bad: I used one spoon for the cooking and aluminum foil, so just one knife, cutting board, and tiny saucepan need some work. Counters took a few seconds. The messiest part was removing the gills because those things get everywhere, plus they're also really dark and require a little bit of scrubbing to remove their stainy juice. In the future...I'll find someone else to make this for me.