More healthy appetizer experiments
Nov. 30th, 2007 09:37 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hrjOne of the reasons I'm blogging these here is so I don't lose track of the recipes. Not just to tantalize my friends.
Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms To celebrate the official certification of Bay Area crabs as not toxic from our oil spill and the delayed opening of crabbing season.
Wash and remove the stems from a pound of medium-sized mushrooms. (With the size I got, this came out to 3 dozen mushrooms.) I tried steaming them a little before filling them because I dislike a half-cooked mushroom (raw is ok, cooked is ok) and I was planning to broil the result, but I think you could get good results by starting with raw and baking at a lower heat. Room for experimentation.
Finely mince half a medium onion then brown it in a skillet. My low-cal browning method involves a thin film of spray-on cooking oil and extremely low heat.
Mix together:
the onion
approx. 4 oz crab meat (i.e., one small can, although fresh would be nice)
1 Tbsp prepared mustard
30 g. grated cheddar cheese
1 egg white (approx. 2 Tbsp)
Fill the caps with the mixture, arrange on a non-stick baking pan, and broil for about 15 minutes or until browned and firm. For 36 mushrooms, this comes out to 9 cal/shroom.
Analysis: I was worried about overwhelming the delicate crab flavor with the mustard, but I could actually have doubled the mustard and they would have balanced better. The onion is there primarily as filler and texture and I think you could substitute any other crunchy veg (such as celery) successfully. (In fact, you could probably double the amount of non-crab ingredients to extend the filling over more mushrooms.) The structural chemistry worked just as intended, with the filling setting up firmly and holding into the shrooms solidly. It took longer for them to start browning than I expected, but this may be a function of doing it in my toaster oven. Steaming the mushrooms left them a bit juicier and more slippery than they would have been otherwise, and I think next time I'll go for starting with the raw cap and then baking at 450F for 20 min or so. For bite-sized items, these were surprisingly filling.
Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms To celebrate the official certification of Bay Area crabs as not toxic from our oil spill and the delayed opening of crabbing season.
Wash and remove the stems from a pound of medium-sized mushrooms. (With the size I got, this came out to 3 dozen mushrooms.) I tried steaming them a little before filling them because I dislike a half-cooked mushroom (raw is ok, cooked is ok) and I was planning to broil the result, but I think you could get good results by starting with raw and baking at a lower heat. Room for experimentation.
Finely mince half a medium onion then brown it in a skillet. My low-cal browning method involves a thin film of spray-on cooking oil and extremely low heat.
Mix together:
the onion
approx. 4 oz crab meat (i.e., one small can, although fresh would be nice)
1 Tbsp prepared mustard
30 g. grated cheddar cheese
1 egg white (approx. 2 Tbsp)
Fill the caps with the mixture, arrange on a non-stick baking pan, and broil for about 15 minutes or until browned and firm. For 36 mushrooms, this comes out to 9 cal/shroom.
Analysis: I was worried about overwhelming the delicate crab flavor with the mustard, but I could actually have doubled the mustard and they would have balanced better. The onion is there primarily as filler and texture and I think you could substitute any other crunchy veg (such as celery) successfully. (In fact, you could probably double the amount of non-crab ingredients to extend the filling over more mushrooms.) The structural chemistry worked just as intended, with the filling setting up firmly and holding into the shrooms solidly. It took longer for them to start browning than I expected, but this may be a function of doing it in my toaster oven. Steaming the mushrooms left them a bit juicier and more slippery than they would have been otherwise, and I think next time I'll go for starting with the raw cap and then baking at 450F for 20 min or so. For bite-sized items, these were surprisingly filling.
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