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Roasted Mushroom Base

5.0(519)

At this year’s Worlds of Health Flavors conference in Napa, Calif., Pam Smith, a culinary nutritionist, presented delicious recipes by the chef Clifford Pleau featuring a finely chopped roasted mushroom mix (chefs refer to it as simply “The Mix”), that she combined with beef for a delicious burger with half the meat, and with tuna for a wonderful tuna burger. Inspired, I made up a big batch of my own version of the mushroom base when I got home and had a lot of fun using it all week in adaptations of classic meat or fish dishes with the animal protein cut by half or more and replaced with the mushroom base. I recommend using pre-sliced mushrooms for this – then the mix goes very quickly. It is very easy to make and keeps well for several days in the refrigerator.

by Martha Rose Shulman

Open original recipe

Dinner, Lunch, Vegetables

Servings

1 1/4 pounds or about 3 cups

Total time

45 min

Calories / serving

111 kcal

Ingredients (4)

serves

2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oilolive-oil
2 pounds mushrooms, sliced or quarteredmushroom
Salt to tastesalt
Freshly ground black pepper to tastepepper

Instructions (3 steps)

01Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
02In a large bowl, toss mushrooms with oil, salt and pepper. Spread in an even layer on baking sheets and bake in the middle and lower racks of the oven for 20 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes and switching pans top to bottom halfway through. The mushrooms should be tender and dry when done. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
03Grind in a grinder or pulse in a food processor fitted with steel blade until broken down into small pieces resembling ground meat. What works best in my food processor is to pulse about 10 times, scrape down the sides of the bowl and then pulse another five to 10 times. Taste and adjust seasoning.