Portabella and Caramelized Onions Emperador

Hello from Spain!

Life has calmed down a bit in some ways, in that I’m not on the move so much these last few weeks. We came to this camp in the mountains of Spain last week. It has been nice to be a bit more settled, and of course the life is beautiful here. We’ve been doing loads of hiking the last few days. Starting to feel a lot stronger and fitter.

I am staying busy with university stuff. I only have one class this session, but it is really tough! The class is “Law and Civil Rights in Latin America.” It involves loads of research and reading lots of legal case law, but in Spanish.

I met up with this friend Elli a few weeks ago. I enjoyed traveling alone, but there has also been benefits to having a traveling partner: easier logistics when having two people to figure out directions, rooms, etc. Also, Elli is a very strict vegan, which brings me to the inspiration for this weeks dish.

We were talking about hamburger substitutes, and Elli swears by the fake meat style burgers, which I have generally found to be unsatisfying. I mentioned that I enjoy a portabella mushroom burger, and she SCOFFED in my face. According to Elli, a thick slab of mushroom is no replacement for meat because she doesn’t feel full after. I disagree. We had strong disagreements.

As a way to express my autonomy and correctness, this week’s recipe will be a delicious mushroom sandwich. Again, simple, but what I want us to practice this week is “caramelizing”.

Like last week, this will involve preparing multiple simple parts:
* fried portabella mushroom
* caramelized onions
* fresh sliced tomato and lettuce
* toasted bun

Part 1: Slice your tomatoes and lettuce. Prepare some nice size pieces which look like they are perfect size to fit on top of a burger. Put them all on a plate and put this plate in the refrigerator.

Part 2: Time to caramelize those onions! “Caramelization” is a process whereby sugar + heat = a nice brown sticky flavor / texture. Onions contain natural sugar, so this is quite easy to do with them.
1) Put a generous “glug” of olive oil in a big pan. You want a fair amount of oil for this. Like, not a centimeter thick or anything, but enough that the entire bottom of the pan is covered.
2) Get it up to medium heat.
3) Slice the onions, differently than I showed you to do before. First, cut off the ends and remove the skins. Leave the onion whole (don’t cut it in half). Now, slice it as thinly as possible so how you have nice onion circles.
4) Throw the onions in the hot oil, and leave them there for quite a while, until they turn nice and brown. Stir them occasionally, and don’t let them burn, but you do want them properly browned at the end. That means they have caramelized.
* a little tip: if you are like me, you will LOVE these! There are never enough of them at the end of the meal, so don’t be afraid to do like 2 or 3 onions, depending on how big they are. If you have leftovers, you can always throw them in the fridge and eat them with something else.

Part 3: Fry your portabellas. A nice thing to do is to first melt some margarine in a bowl in the microwave, so you have “liquid butter.” Also, have handy some flour (any kind, although the yellow kind is nicest) in another bowl. First, immerse the portabella in the melted butter. Then, flop it over into the bowl with flour. Get it coated all over in the flour, then put it in a frying pan with a bit of oil or margarine. Cover it, and keep it on fairly low heat. Cook it for about 10 minutes, or until it seems, uh, yknow, “cooked”. At the very end, take the lid off and turn the heat up. Watch it quite closely here, but get both sides nice and hot to give it a little crisp.

Part 4: Since we’re being fancy, it’s nice to toast your buns. You can just use one of your still hot frying pans (dump out extra oil if it’s really juicy in there) and just put them on the hot surface for like a minute or so. You can butter your buns once they are hot, if you like.

Assemble sandwich! Put the portabella on the bottom, and put it upside down so you’ve got a nice surface to put a big spoonful of those caramelized mushrooms. Put on a nice slice of tomato, piece of lettuce, whatever sauces you prefer, and enjoy! Dobar tek!

I miss you guys and look forward to enjoying them together this summer 🙂