Author Notes: We live in a lovely but dwindling corner of Montana. In the early 1900s it was a beautiful town/city – with a flourishing mining industry and periodic influxes of European and Asian immigrants. Underground mining was replaced by flats – with the exodus of the miners from the town. Mercifully, the downtown area – called uptown because it is at a higher elevation than where the miners lived. boasts beautiful turn of the century brick buildings with lovely architecture and interesting eateries. One of our favorites is the Uptown cafe which serves the most delicious traditional Coquille St Jacques.
We have five sons and an assortment of daughters-in-law.
Our sons are Philip (divinely handsome looks like Gregory Peck)married to Joyce – Caucasian, Michael who likes taking pictures of my dishes married to Sharon – of Hispanic-Scott origin, Andrew who is 6 months away from being a full fledged psychiatrist married to Mariko – Japanese German, David with the driest sense of humor – if it got any drier it would crack- married to Tong who is Thai, and Joseph the baby-lives in England – married to Elishba who is probably Tibetan-?Caucasian. Bill is my husband – he says he is a “garden variety white guy from Mississippi” and I am Indian (the dot kind – not the feather kind).
Andrew’s wife Mariko is drop-dead gorgeous and smart. Although she approves of my cooking she says I am haphazard and record nothing for posterity. She also challenges me to do something different. Our son Andrew wants to go Vegan in the hope that he will get back to being as trim , fit and handsome as he was at the Naval academy. So Mariko has been trying to use vegan recipes. —AnnaChacko
Serves: four
Ingredients
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4
medium sized portabello mushrooms
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4
tablespoons Olive oil
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2
teaspoons chives chopped into small pieces
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1
tablespoon Garlic paste
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3
medium shallots – chopped/diced into 1/4″ pieces
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2
tablespoons pistachio nut pieces or whole pine nuts
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1
tablespoon all-purpose flour
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2
tablespoons soy milk/water
Directions
- remove the stalks from the portabello mushrooms, and scoop out the gills. Save these to make the stuffing.
- Add 1.5 – 2 TSP of olive oil to a shallow saucepan and on a medium flame cook the portabello mushrooms with topside down for about 2 minutes. then flip the mushrooms over and cook for another 2 mintes. Do not squash the mushrooms. It is important to keep them looking like shallow cups. Do not overcook the mushrooms because they will be come chewy/mushy.
- to make the stuffing mixture: Chop up the stalk and the gills into 1/4″ pieces. Mix these in with 2tbsp of olive oil, garlic paste, chopped shallots, pistachio pieces/pine nuts.
- Saute the mixture in a small saucepan until the shallots are transparent. Add a pinch of nutmeg. Once the mixture starts smelling fragrant take it off the heat and set aside.
- Add salt and pepper to taste.
- Make a slurry of soy milk /water and flour. The consistency of the slurry should be thicker than water and thinner than pancake batter.
- Scoop the stuffing mixture into the portabello “cups”. The stuffing should make a gentle mound over the mushrooms.
- Carefully pour the slurry over the stuffing. Sprinkle liberally with panko.
- Preheat oven to 325 and bake for about 15 – 20 minutes – until panko turns golden.
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Serve almost immediately. Eat and enjoy.
Pair it with a dry white wine. Dont worry you are still vegan.