- You guys have told me a lot of you
that you can't stand mushrooms
and I need to address that here today,
because mushrooms are such an incredible flavorful food
and a really great meat substitute.
So today, I'm going to show you a technique
that will kind of ensure
that you never cook mushrooms the same way again.
(upbeat music)
Hey guys, I'm Candice Hutchings
welcome back to my channel.
I'm gonna show you how to cook mushrooms
in a way that will ensure that you love them.
If you're living a vegan diet,
vegetarian diet mushrooms are such an incredible
and natural meat substitute
so if let's say you have a soy intolerance
so you can't eat a lot of meat substitutes
that are out there
this is a really nice option for you.
And I'm going to show you how to prepare the mushrooms
and then I'm going to show you
how to put it into
a philly cheese steak style sandwich.
Okay. So let's start with the mushrooms.
So mushrooms are like I said,
a really delicious and medium meat substitute.
If you cook them correctly,
a lot of the time people will say,
you know, they're really soggy.
I don't like the texture
I don't know how to cook them properly
they never brown
So we're gonna tackle that today.
So the key with these is to cook them
in a cast iron pan
or anything with a heavy bottom.
I mean any like whether it's ceramic or whatever
any pan will do,
but you'll get the best results
with a cast iron or ceramic heavy bottom pan
and what we're going to do is just cook them
but a handful at a time in the pan
and we do not season them
with salt or pepper until the very end.
So what that does is
it allows the moisture to be drawn out more naturally.
What salt does is it draws
out moisture from whatever you're cooking.
So the pot itself
or the pan is going to be a lot more moist
or wet because it's drawing out all that liquid.
So don't salt them till the end.
So they will natural release their juices
and then the juices will erupt,
either evaporate into the air
or back into the mushroom,
making them more flavorful.
This technique also makes them firmer
and a lot more meatier in texture
and then for the philly cheese steak
because I thought that this was the perfect dish for this.
We're going to use my favorite vegan cheese
which is bench cheese.
It's just the vegan mozzarella
traditionally you would use like a provolone or something
but I don't have a vegan version of that.
And then for me,
I love to also top it with pickled jalapenos
because I like a little bit of heat
but that's not traditional
but that's just what I'm going to do.
So I couldn't find like hoagie rolls
so I just have these baguette buns,
potato rolls are also really nice
and then also I will address that
for this recipe
specifically I would prefer these
to be oyster mushrooms or shiitakes
but it's Covid-19
and I can't find them near me.
So we're using cremini
but you can use any mushroom that you love.
So the first thing I'm going to do
is heat up my pan just dry as it is
and I'm going to add between two
and three tablespoons of oil
into the pan once it's really hot,
whirl that around right,
so it's nice and hot
so that's the perfect temperature
and then, like I said,
handfuls at a time
I'm going to add my mushrooms
and you want that to be hot
because you want the mushrooms to sizzle
as soon as they go into the pan.
And then you also want to make sure
that you don't crowd the mushrooms
because if you crowd them
they will steam each other
and they'll never Brown.
So that's why we're doing handfuls at a time
so this does take a little bit longer
but it's so worth it in the end I promise
it's like Julia child said,
"never crowd the mushroom."
or I guess it will be
never crowd rhe mushrooms.
I don't know, terrible
So am gonna move the mushrooms around
coat them in that oil,
I'm gonna spread them out
and I'm gonna leave them
for about two minutes untouched.
So just leave them undisturbed.
Don't touch them, let them do their thing.
And this should only take you a couple of handfuls
depending on how many you need
for whatever recipe you're making.
I'm going to do
like two to four Philly cheese steaks.
So it'll take me like three handfuls
to get this done.
Okay. So after about two minutes,
you wanna move them around again,
if you can flip them, flip them
but obviously you're not gonna go in
and flip like each individual one.
Key here is getting that moisture either back
into the mushroom or out into the air.
So that they brown and they're not steaming.
So what I like to do is just kind of
scrape the ball to the side
and then do my next batch over here
and then scrape those to the side
and do my next batch.
and then by the end they're all
in the same pan.
And if you have a well used Caesar inplanted pan
you don't really need to worry about sticking.
Although I have found that mushrooms don't really stick
to pans as it is.
Like you don't need a non-stick pan
when I kind of move these to the side
let them do their thing
and add my next handful.
So these are going to continue cooking.
These ones will start
and you just kind of do that
until you have all of your mushrooms.
Alright so while this is happening
cause I like to have everything going at the same time
so I can have dinner on the table in like 30 minutes.
What I'm going to do is now sorting my peppers
and my onions in another pan
and this just pretty much the same thing
we're just gonna add some oil,
throw the peppers in,
move them around until they're
very soft and brown.
So about 10, 15 minutes, depending on your pan.
So you need only about a tablespoon
and again, you're going to cook that over medium high heat,
throw your onions in
and then we're going to add our pepper.
So again depending on
how many you're making
one large pepper or two small peppers
should be more than enough
and I'm going to cook that over medium high.
(mushrooms sizzling)
Okay. So I have cut my buns in half
leaving them still attached on one side
and I'm just going to butter them.
Now, if you do have a bun that is quite thick
you can remove the inside,
it's kind of put it to the side,
but these are fine,
So I'm just going to butter them.
Really that simple.
The butter helps cause it also adds
like a level of moisture
Who doesn't like a nice saucy,
gooey mess at the sandwich.
I mean, I know I do.
I do that with both buns
and then I just
so that nothing dries out,
I just like close them up
and then as you're coming near the end of the mushrooms
that you want to use
they're kind of frowned enough.
I like to turn down the heat a little bit,
especially if it's in a cast iron pan,
because it holds so much heat.
I don't want the other mushrooms that are ready
to go to burn
and because again Corona problems,
I have brown cremini mushrooms
and white cremini mushrooms.
So I want the white ones to brown up a lot more
to look like the brown ones.
You want the onions seaweed a little bit brown
but not burnt,
not even really charged,
just a little bit brown.
You want the pepper to be soft,
I like to turn it down to
about medium, medium, low
near the end.
So the mushrooms are ready
when they look kind of like this guy here.
Of course, when you have oyster or shiitake,
they really really start to
not look like mushrooms,
just using what I have access to
when the mushrooms are almost done,
we are going to add some garlic powder
some pepper and some salt.
So I'm going to go ahead
and start with the salt,
then some pepper
(soft music)
and then garlic powder.
You don't need to add garlic powder
I just liked the flavor that
it brings out in the mushrooms
who doesn't love garlic, right?
Mix that together,
depending on how many you want to make
you wanna create little like clusters in the pan.
So almost like little mountains
or little hills in your pan.
Else kind of make sure that
there's enough on both sides
seems kind of even to me.
So we're gonna add our onions
and our green pepper right on top.
(soft music)
something like that.
So I would usually do this to feed like four people
to make four sandwiches
or you know, make enough
so that I can put it in the fridge
and kind of do this after
it's kind of toss it face down like that
so I'm using just this veggie cheese mozzarella
which is my favorite it's made by
a family here in Toronto.
If you have like cheese slices,
your favorite cheese slices that you'd like to use
you can use that.
That's got what you want.
It's more pliable.
You can also steam the bun
if you don't like toasted buns,
you can steam them.
So you can also do it in the oven
under broil just for a couple minutes
after your cheese has melted,
I will just go in
and scoop up everything with a large spatula.
Again, we're dealing with a lot of little pieces
because it's not actual beef you dealing with mushrooms
but then you can just flop it right
onto your roll.
If you have any extra thing you top it like that
Another thing I like to do
that I talked about earlier
was I like to add pickled jalapenos
for a little bit of heat,
but because they're pickled
It's not that spicy at all.
(upbeat music)
Alright guys Well,
there you have it delicious cheesy
meaty G-six sandwiches using mushroom.
So I hope that you guys use this technique
of cooking the mushrooms in this way to
I don't know, like mimic any other type
of like beefy type of meat that you're trying to mimic.
And I hope that you guys will try this out
if you'd like these kinds of recipes,
give this video a big huge thumbs up
and let me know in the comment section below
what kind of foods you would be interested in learning
how to cook properly
or a new technique or a food that you just hate.
Maybe it's, I don't know
a plant maybe it's figs,
I don't know
and I'll see what I can do for you.
(soft music)
mmh! It's such a good sandwich
I really love the creaminess of the cheese
and then there's like freshness
of the cook green pepper even though it's not fresh
and then the meatiness of the mushroom
it's so good.
Alright guys, if you're new here hit
that subscribe button
and I'll see you next time. Bye.