1 final post for the day here folks. When I expanded the menu at The Sub Shop, I included steak + cheese grinders, as well as mushroom swiss burgers. We pride ourselves on making things from scratch, as anyone can open a can. I personally do not like mushrooms myself, but even I eat these! They go great on steak grinders (or subs or hoagies, depending on where you’re from) and also go great as a side dish with grilled steak. You can also substitute equal quantities of these mushrooms in place of the mushrooms in other recipes to make your recipe shine. Remember, the key to success in cooking is versatility. As always, you may want to reduce the quantities a bit for home use.
36 oz sliced canned mushrooms, good quality, juices reserved (if you buy cheap in any recipe, you food will reflect it)
6 TBS butter
1 1/2 cups juice from mushrooms
2 whole shallots, minced
3 cans (30 oz) Campbells Beef Consomme
1 1/2 cups cream sherry
2 tsp ground white or black pepper
Place butter, mushrooms, and shallot into a pan over medium high heat, and saute until mushrooms start to darken, about 5 or 10 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients and cook, stirring occasionally, until almost all of the liquid has evaporated. These mushrooms have depth, and an excellent beefy flavor. For a change up, to use with chicken or fish, you can substitute chicken broth for the beef consomme.
Sorry, I guess that’s a New England term. A “grinder” is also known as a “sub”, “hoagie”, “po’boy” or simply “sandwich”. Our steak “grinder” consists of a 14" sub roll, filled with thinly shaved sauteed steak, onions, peppers, mushrooms (from my previous post) and covered in our cheese sauce (from my other previous post). It is our take on a “philly cheese steak”, but with the mushrooms added. It is a great sandwich and one of our best sellers. There is also a special marinade for the steak, which I will be posting at a later date, but just plain sauteed steak works fine. The key is to get some really good thin sliced steak, Steak Ums does not do this justice. If you can’t find good shaved steak at your grocery store, your butcher can shave some for you. If you happen to have a meat slicer (we have one at the restaurant, but most people don’t own one for home use) you can simply put a frozen rib eye, or your favorite steak, on the slicer set on it’s thinnest setting.
I’m glad you enjoyed them! They also go great when added to beef stoganoff instead of regular mushrooms. Also, you can add a little cream and some of the cheese sauce from my other post for a great mushroom sauce to go over chicken or beef…
As far as replacing the alocohol goes, that’s a tough one. I have in-laws who don’t touch alcohol for religious reasons, and friends who simply don’t like the taste. Both of them love the mushrooms, and are aware of the alcohol used in cooking. As far as the sherry goes, the actual alcohol from the sherry evaporates off during cooking, as it has a lower evaporation point than other liquids. This is why I cook them until the liquid is almost evaporated, as the flavor of “raw” alocohol in food is not very palatable in my opinion. For all intensive purposes there is no alcohol in the dish. From a religious or other standpoint, I wouldn’t swear by that, but you definitely can’t taste it. That leaves you with a few options. You can cook them without the sherry, and while they will still be good they will simply have a different flavor. You can use “cooking” sherry, although I think that might also contain alcohol, but a lower level, and I would never reccomend using “cooking” wine or sherry, since it is not fit to drink, and therefore isn’t fit to put in your food. If you have a good sized liquor store near you, or a specialty food store, you can check with the person in charge of liquor purchase and see if they have something along those lines that is non-alcoholic, or if they can get it. Finally, you can check the non-alcoholic section of the store, or your local supermarket, and see what they have to offer in the way of non-alcoholic beverages. I have used cream sherry, dry sherry, and cognac, all with great success, and those are the flavors and/or styles you want to get close to in a non-alcoholic form. Hope this helps you!
1 Lb Large Button Mushrooms
1/2 Lb Ground Italian Sausage Sweet or Mildly spiced
1/2 Grated Mozzarella Cheese
1 small onion, diced fine
2 cups favorite Italian Tomatoe Sauce ( Homemade is best)
3/4 Bread Crumbs
Gently wipe dirt from mushrooms and remove stems and dice fine. Brown Italian sausage in pan with bit of diced onion and dice mushroom stems then add teaspoon of cook meat tp each mushroom cap, placing in hollow where stem had been. Top with good bit of Mozzarella cheese and place in oiled baking dish. Top with more sauce and cheese and brown at 350* to desired color. Serve as side dish or if very large mushroom caps used and Appitizer or even main course
