Portobello Mushrooms With Chevré (goat cheese): Remove the stems from portobello mushrooms and clean both stems and caps. Set the caps aside and cut the stems into matchsticks and then small cubes, combining with similarly cubed cremini mushrooms and diced white onion. Sauté on a high heat in a little butter mixed with olive oil. Season while cooking with salt, fresh rosemary, a small amount of onion and garlic powders, fresh cracked white peppercorn. Cook until golden brown and set aside to cool.

Toast rounds of Italian bread or another round bread of your preference. (It is good if you can more or less match up the size of the rounds with the diameter of the portobello mushroom caps.) Toast the bread and then spread with chevré. Press the sauteed mushroom mixture into the cheese and place under the broiler to melt the cheese slightly and warm the mushrooms. Broil the portobello mushroom caps gill side up, salted and coated with a very small amount of extra virgin olive oil. Turn the caps over, salt and oil the tops and arrange them on the toasted bread/cheese/mushroom mixture. Return to the broiler and cook until they are gold-brown.

Portobello or portabella mushrooms are really just cremini mushrooms that have grown large, and creminis are really just one form of the humble button mushroom. Once upon a time these overgrown shrooms were thrown out, until sometime in the 1980s someone got the brilliant idea of marketing them under a faux Italian name as a delicacy. And so the portobello was born.

Portobellos have flat caps which can be 6 inches or more in diameter. As they grow from little creminis the caps open and spread, exposing the gills, through which some of the moisture evaporates, creating a concentrated flavour and dense - some would say meaty - texture. Portobellos have very woody stems which for that reason are not usually eaten; only the caps are consumed. They can be sliced or chopped like any mushroom, or left whole and grilled.

Like any mushroom, portobellos should be washed under a gentle stream of water before being used. (I don't subscribe to the school of thought that mushrooms in water get water-logged.) When they are fried, the gills cause the mushroom flesh to become quite black, so you may want to slice off the gills with a sharp knife first. Store them in a paper bag if you have one; they will go soft and stinky stored in a plastic bag unless it's really airtight.

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