Five salt dinner 3 - Stuffed Mushrooms

Oookay... So I was going to do salt-crusted red snapper next. Then I took the fish out of the bag to work on it. Then I shrieked like a little girl, and ran across the room to get away from the bag with the GIANT FISH EYE staring at me.

I am a city boy at heart. I do not want to be close to nature; I don't want to be part of the food cycle. I want my meat in fillets, steaks, or other forms that don't remind me at all of what they once were. What I do NOT want is a GIANT FISH (and by giant, I mean literally the smallest red snapper the market had) that is likely to start flopping around any second. (Despite being dead and gutted.)

Are you trying to tell me that thing doesn't freak you out at all?

I really wish I could describe how freaked out I am right now. I was barely able to get the fish back into the bag and into the fridge. I really, really hope Victoria is willing to deal with that thing.

You know what the funny thing is? I KNOW all this about myself - yet I bought a whole red snapper anyway.

Well, I'd better get working on something else, then...

Five salt dinner 3 - Salt-Crusted Red Snapper Stuffed Mushrooms

(Picking this entry up the next day - I just didn't have time to keep blogging and still get dinner on the table at a reasonable hour.)

As I said earlier, in the interest of science, I'm going to be making the following stuffed mushrooms every week - the only alteration being the spice I add for flavoring. It's a simple recipe, the point being to have something yummy, but which doesn't overwhelm the flavor of the spice. I had intended to make it exactly the same way every week - but honestly, at least in the beginning, I'm not going to be able to stop myself from tinkering. The mushrooms tend to come out a bit more watery than I would prefer. More on that later.

Also, I like to say mushrump a instead of mushroom. I do it enough that Victoria bought me a stuffed hedgehog and named him Mushrump. (What? It makes sense. His girlfriend is Pinecone, obviously.) Here is a picture of Mushrump - doesn't he make my baby look cute?

Seriously... I am shameless.

Right. Mushrooms.

Okay, so the parts:

 

Mushrooms, spinach, a baking pan, some salt, that's it. Well, since I'm cooking for eight this evening, and I've got plenty of mushrooms, I decided to spice things up a bit - I had an extra chorizo in the fridge, so I fried it up and threw it in the mix.

De-stem the mushrooms, and put them in the baking tray. Take the stems, and add an equal volume of spinach. Then, chop the hell out of them. My favorite tool for going nuts on stuff like this is a knife I found out last night is called a Mezza Luna - a curved knife with a handle on both ends. It's really good at mincing things, and it's really fun to use.

Cackling evilly is not a requirement when you use this thing, but every little bit helps.

After I chopped everything up, I decided I had too much stem, not enough spinach, so I threw in another half-handful or so. Half of this got enbowled at this point. I chucked the chorizo in the pile, kept chopping for a bit. Eventually, I wound up with this.

Now, as I said earlier,  the last few times the mushrooms have been a little too much... let's say juicy. Not bad - but a bit too much water in my mouth when I bite down. I've learned a bit about the cooking uses of salt, recently - and so I decided to sprinkle some kosher salt on the mushrooms, figuring that it would pull some of the water out of them.

 

In to the oven for seven minutes - and when I pulled them off, it was pretty clear that water had been pulled out - the salt on the bottom of the tray had been dissolved, then the water it dissolved in evaporated.

Perfect! Flipped 'em over, (to be honest, I don't know why I was cooking them face-down then flipping them... I'll try it the other way next time and see if anything different happens.) stuffed 'em with the mushroom and spinach mix, covered 'em with a little bit of cheese (a parmesan/asiago mix) and threw them back in for seven minutes.

Result:

They look better than they tasted. Not that they tasted bad - actually, they tasted really good - but to me, at least, that picture looks like some kind of Platonic ideal of stuffed mushrooms. I'm drooling looking at that picture.

They were definitely less watery than they were last time, but I think there's still room for improvement. Anyone have any suggestions?