Grilled Portabella Sandwich

I'd never tried grilling portabella mushrooms before. It's much easier than I expected. Tom was away, and it was a hot day, and I didn't want to use the stove in the house.

I thought I'd experiment with the fixings, too. I think I was worried that just a mushroom would be boring, so I may have gone a little overboard: fresh thyme and sherry for the portabella, an onion to caramelize, a mousse terrine to smear on the Ciabatta roll, smoked provolone and roasted red pepper.

Caramelized an onion, low and slow for about 20 minutes, while I made everything else. I added a pinch of salt and sugar at the beginning.

Doused the mushrooms in sherry and sprinkled them with fresh thyme. FYI - I should have oiled them so they didn't stick to the grill. I cooked them on a preheated grill, on medium, covered for 10 minutes without moving them. Here's how they came out. The sherry was a little too strong. Maybe sherry vinegar mixed with olive oil would be better next time. Still, they were very good.

While the mushrooms and onions were cooking, I smeared a little mousse on one side of the roll, and put shavings of the smoked provolone on the other side. Not too much. Wanted the mushroom to be the star.

The mousse I chose contained pork, chicken livers and truffles, but there are a variety of these in our store, even a vegan version, if you want your sandwich to be vegetarian. And I had never had smoked provolone before, but it was fantastic! Added a drained, dried a roasted red pepper from a jar. A big portion of caramelized onions and then the mushroom. To make a dressing for a side salad, I added olive oil and a dab of mustard to some of the sherry and thyme. Salt and pepper, too. Then I mixed it together and coated the lettuce. My mouth was watering as I assembled it. It turned out to be a little messy to eat, but oh-soo-good! I chopped up the leftover veggies and made sort of a cold ratatouille for lunch the next day.