Oyster Mushrooms Rockefeller
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| Photo by Sergio Salvador www.salvadorphoto.com |
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| Photo by Sergio Salvador www.salvadorphoto.com |
Here's a special Valentine's day recipe that I'm really excited about - it's so delicious, your beloved will swoon. I love oysters, but they're not exactly native to New Mexico, and this is a veggie blog. Mushrooms have long been considered an aphrodisiac, as have oysters, and we are lucky enough to have access to great locally grown oyster mushrooms here in ABQ. They're available year-round in Albuquerque from Exotic Edibles or Los Poblanos Organics. Even without actual oysters, this dish is “rich enough for Rockefeller” just like the original.
Oysters Rockefeller was created at Antoine's restaurant in New Orleans over 100 years ago, and has been a closely guarded secret ever since. This recipe is adapted from one on The Gumbo Pages, a great website devoted to New Orleans culture. Purported to be a close reproduction of the original, it uses fresh herbs, green onions and no spinach. Chervil is difficult to find in stores (but easy to grow), so just use a little extra tarragon if you don't have it. Fresh herbs are the key to great flavor, but as long as you use fresh celery leaves and parsley, you can get away with dried tarragon.
1 green onion
1 sprig flat-leaf Italian parsley
1 sprig tarragon
1 sprig chervil
A few celery leaves
2 T. good French bread crumbs (not from a can)
3 T. butter, softened
Salt
Freshly ground pepper
Tabasco sauce
½ T. Herbsaint or Pernod (optional)
1 T. olive oil
¼ pound whole oyster mushrooms (nice large ones)
Mince the green onion, parsley, tarragon, chervil and celery leaves, as finely as possible (you can do this in a food processor). Mix with the bread crumbs and butter to make a fairly smooth paste. Season with salt, pepper, Tabasco and Herbsaint or Pernod, as desired.
Preheat your oven's broiler. Trim the stem off each mushroom (you can mince these up and mix them into the filling). In a wide skillet, heat the olive oil on medium flame. Lightly salt the gill side of each mushroom and saute them gill side down until nicely browned, 5 to 10 minutes. Remove from skillet and spread the filling onto the top side of each mushroom.
Place the mushrooms on a baking sheet and broil until the filling is bubbling and browned, 5 to 10 minutes, watching carefully to make sure they don't burn. Serves 2.
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