Cheesy stuffed mushrooms

A new dish I tried over Christmas was cream cheese stuffed mushrooms. 

A long time ago, I came across a recipe for mushrooms stuffed with feta and red onion, and this is a variation on that. It’s pretty simple really. But the trick I learned is how to prep the mushrooms before stuffing them.

I bought a 400gm tray of smallish brown mushrooms, but the amount of stuffing would have filled probably 500gm. The important thing when you select your mushrooms is that they are button, not flat, and have a highish lip. Next time, I’ll select then individually instead of buying a tray. You’ll see why later!

First step is to give them a wipe, then cut off the stalk, leaving a nice space to stuff.

Then lay them face down on an oven tray, covered with some baking paper. Give them a rub with some olive oil, avocado oil, or some pork lard or coconut oil, though those are fiddlier. You can see I’ve covered the bottom quite thoroughly but haven’t gone all the way up the side.

Pop it under the grill, while you prepare the stuffing. The mushrooms are ready to stuff when juices are starting to run off them. Use some kitchen tongs (or a couple of forks) to turn them over and drain off what you can of the excess juices.

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This Xmas, I fancied them stuffed with some cream cheese, which I hadn’t done before. So into my mini food processor went 125gm cream cheese and 100gm grated tasty cheddar. I didn’t have any red onion left, so didn’t do this, but you could also zizz up some red onion in the processor before adding the cheeses, for additional flavour.

If you don’t have a suitable food processor, you can just mash the cheeses together with a fork.

The mix will be quite firm. Use a teaspoon to pile some onto each mushroom.

I cooked them at 175C for about 20 minutes on the second tray down, some turkey mini meatloafs that were cooking. If they were on the top tray, 15 mins might be enough.

Now you see why it’s so important to have a well enclosed space to stuff! If you’re cooking for yourself, it doesn’t matter too much. Just scrape the overflow off the baking paper and pile it back on top of each mushroom. But for guests, you want them to look nice.

Then I took out the turkey, and put them on the top tray and grilled them for about 2 mins, just enough to give some colour. Oh well, half of them looked good. And they tasted great!

Variations

Using the same prep method, you can stuff them with whatever you fancy.

• Vary the types of cheese.
• Add a slice of salami and a dollop of tomato paste, then some cheese, to make a low carb mini pizza
• The rest I leave to your imagination