SAUSAGE-STUFFED MUSHROOMS - ebook
Who doesn’t love a stuffed mushroom? This recipe calls for white mushrooms about 2" in diameter. You stuff 10, and chop up 4. These mushrooms come in packs of 6 at my grocery store, so I bought 12. I included chopped up stems and trimmings from the mushrooms to make up for the two I lacked.
You start by cooking fennel sausage in a sauté pan, breaking it up. I used Beyond Hot Italian here, which does indeed have fennel in it. You had chopped green pepper (Bell? They don’t say. I used bell.), garlic, and the chopped mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms release their liquid and it evaporates. You then add Carmine’s bread crumbs (a separate recipe) and chicken stock. At this point, you are supposed to reduce the heat, stir in cheese and diced pickled cherry peppers, and the filling is done. But I had a problem because… wait for it… 1 cup of chicken stock was way too much. So I did a combination of continuing to cook until the stock was reduced, and adding more bread crumbs. You then set this aside to cool, and even refrigerate for a while, before stuffing the mushrooms.
The mushrooms eventually get stuffed. The quantity of stuffing was about perfect, even with the additional crumbs added. They get baked at 400 for 15-20 minutes (I did 20).
The flavor of these was good, but the texture suffered from the fiasco with too much chicken broth. Even though I added extra crumbs and reduced the stock, mushy bread crumbs don’t just un-mush. I would make these again though, just adding very little stock. Actually I think a couple tablespoons of white wine would be a better option here.
