Roasted Portobellos

Portobellos are the meatiest of mushrooms. Large portobellos can fill in for the meat in the main course or act as a side dish.

I found these beautiful portobello mushrooms at the Honeymoon Farm stand at the Growing Roots Farmers Market in Malvern, PA. Earlier this season I met Liz Hopkins who owns Honeymoon Farm with her husband, Gary. She takes the time to make sure her customers get the best mushrooms they have to offer.

While this recipe calls for roasting them in the oven, it was a particularly hot day so I suggested that we prepare them on the grill instead as Ed was heating it up to cook some meat. We usually cook portobellos directly on the grill and they end up getting a bit dried out. Here we used the grill like an oven and cooked them in a baking dish (glass or ceramic works). Assuming you have a three burner grill, you’ll want to turn off the middle burner and place the dish on top of it while the side burners heat up the grill. Or you can heat your oven to  450°F.

Since the portobellos cook in a dish, the juices remain making them much more moist. Add to it some fresh herbs and garlic and you have a nice sauce to spoon over them when they are done. I used thyme and sage but any combination of fresh herbs will do.

I also recommend finishing them with a drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar. It’s thicker than regular balsamic vinegar which makes it ideal for drizzling. The flavor is quite concentrated so you don’t need much. It was the perfect excuse to use a lovely aged balsamic vinegar that Hunter and Jacque F gave us.