Grilled Veg 4 - Mushrooms

With the possible exception of the Portabello, mushrooms are not generally thought of as grilled. Fried --yes! Raw and in salads -- yes! Cooked in stews -- yes! As part of pasta sauce -- yes!

But grilled? --No. Yet mushrooms are one of the best things on the grill. The somewhat bland flavor of most of the mushrooms available in your average supermarket (many of them grown in long -abandoned coal mines in Pennsylvania), enhanced for example with dressing on a salad, is replaced by a rich flavor brought out by the grilling. Other methods of warming them up, such as sauteing them with some EVOO in a large frying pan also bring out the flavor. (For EVOO, click here).

But grilling is ideal for this. And it is very easy to do. It takes almost no time, to boot. Grilled mushrooms -- now that is something to take notice of.

We have two kinds of mushrooms here: good old crimini and the more exotic and expensive shiitake.

Wash them, put them in a bowl, and dribble some extra virgin olive oil over them.

There is of course no end to the types of mushrooms that could be added to this mixture or used instead of these two. Portobellos, or pieces of them, are an obvious example.

One of the appeals of eating mushrooms is the great variety of types available. Even a regular old supermarket has perhaps a dozen types on the shelves of its greengrocery.

Certain types, like Chanterelles, are practically worshiped, almost like truffles. We can grill those other types one day, but for now we are sticking with two basic -- and delicious -- mushrooms that prove to be great on the grill..

We could place the individual mushrooms separately each one on the grill. But turning them one-by-one and preventing them from falling through the grating is, while not exactly difficult, challenging, shall we say.

Better to put them in a grilling basket.

That makes the whole process much easier. We can turn the mushrooms over just by shaking them around in the basket.

Buy a grilling basket. It can be used for fruits, many types of vegetables, and even some meats and fish, as well as for mushrooms. You will be pleased with how versatile and useful this simple addition to your grilling armaments is.

Two or three minutes, that's all. Then shake them up. Two or three minutes more, that's all. If you want to keep them on the grill a bit longer, to enhance the attractive color of grilled mushrooms, that is okay, too. We dig that.

The net results are:

- a wonderful aroma

- a deepening of color

- an enhancement of flavor

All this for a few minutes on the grill! What does all this lead to?

In this case it leads to an incredibly delicious sandwich.

Let's start this delicious sandwich by grilling pieces we have cut from a sourdough baguette

We need a simple and delicious sauce to highlight the flavor of the grilled mushrooms. After all, we are robbing some pasta sauce or some beef stew of these in order to make a sandwich, so let's find something really great.

Dijon mustard on one half, mayo on the other fits the bill. Simple, but both add deliciousness to the deliciousness of the grilled fungi which are about to make their appearance here.

Here we are going to pair the mushrooms with slices of tomatoes.

Grilled tomatoes would have been better, but we are in a particular hurry, so we have grilled only the mushrooms -- the tomatoes take a little longer, though, admittedly, not a lot longer.

It is so simple to lay this all out, to set the stage for the star appearance of the sandwich we desire.

Several jumbo olives are the perfect accompaniment.

Who wouldn't want to take a big bite of this? Grilled sourdough baguette lathered with Dijon mustard and organic mayo and then graced with layers of grilled mushrooms.

The sour of the sourdough provides yet another dimension to the taste of this wonderful concoction -- concocted right here in our own backyard.

Healthy, too. We are not going to put on weight eating this for vegetable lunch. It would even make a good dinner if we serve a large salad with it.

Check out my salad recipes, too. Check out Lee White's Department Store.

Mushrooms are one of the biggest things in the universe, yet very few people realize how important they are. Basically, mushrooms are everywhere, particularly under foot. More technically, mushrooms are the fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus,and the mushroom that we know is typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source.

Another way to characterize a mushroom it to say that it is the "fleshy, spore-bearing fruiting body of a fungus, typically produced above ground on soil or on its food source."

China produces about half of the mushrooms the world eats. Chinese love mushrooms, and those Chinese who grew up in cities that have now grown so much they have obliterated traditional mushroom hunting areas are doleful individuals because it was a common practice to go to collect mushrooms in areas which are now totally urbanized.

Series within series, actually. Food & Cooking, for example, then -- within that -- series on vegetables, fruits, seafood, meat, etc. Books, too. Ideas, too. Travel, too. Key virtues:. pictures, clear step-by-step text. Delicious -- whether foods or ideas! All of the series, and all of the items in each series, can be found, organized by floor, at this link: Lee White's Department Store. Happy shopping! -- everything is for free!

Real Meal. Unlike fancy food mags, where images are hyped and food itself is secondary, all pix shown here are from a real meal, prepared and eaten by me and my friends. No throwing anything away till perfection is achieved. This is the real deal --- a Real Meal.