This is one of the lucky few sandwiches to have its photo featured in GGC and its unique appearance led me to both anxiously anticipate and slightly dread the week when I would finally tackle this bad boy, but the time has finally come.
I arrived at Wegmans and immediately rolled right past the bakery section (a very strange feeling) and headed straight for the produce (another strange feeling-- I definitely don't buy fruits and veggies as often as I should). The recipe called for EIGHT portobello mushrooms (since they would be serving as the bread). Portobello mushrooms are pretty huge, so my taking eight of them immediately depleted a good part of the mushrooms display in the produce area. Luckily everything else was standard grilled cheese fare:
Beefsteak tomato, 8 ounces sharp provolone, 2 ounces asiago, salt, pepper, oregano, 1/4 cup olive oil and 3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar.
The most involved process where this sandwich is concerned was preparing the mushrooms. Step one was wiping some of the dirt off the cap of the mushroom and removing the stem and gills. Ew. I didn't know that mushrooms have "gills," let alone that they felt all weird and velvety. I didn't really know the best way to go about removing all of this, so I sort of improvised.
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| Step 1: Cut out the stem. |
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| Step 2: Scrape off the gills with a small knife. |
Step 3: WASH YOUR HANDS!! These gills are gross and just made my hands all dirty. Taking the dirt factor into account, I tasked sous chef with giving the mushroom caps a bit of a wipe down before we proceeded. The finished products looked a little something like this:
While I was working on the mushrooms, sous chef was mixing up a little marinade for them comprised of the oil and vinegar (and salt and pepper to taste).
I think we can all see where this is going. Once the mushrooms were all ready, on went the marinade:
I erroneously poured the marinade on the underside of the mushrooms. Upon realizing my mistake, I just flipped them over and rubbed some on the tops as well. Turns out this was actually a better approach as this allowed both sides get a little piece of the marinade action. I let those sit for 10 minutes before transferring them to a cookie sheet for 10 minutes in the oven (that had been pre-heated to 400 degrees).
Once the first 10 minutes were up I flipped all the mushrooms over and put them back in for another 10 minutes. Here's what they looked like when they were all finished:
Whew! I could literally see the steam rising off of them. While the mushrooms were in the oven, I took the liberty of grating the provolone and asiago. I took a taste test of each and was NOT a fan of the provolone. I guess the added sharpness gives it too pungent of an after taste for me, but this was just not good. I crossed my fingers that the asiago would
Since I wasn't entirely confident in the taste of just the provolone I decided to make two sandwiches according to the recipe (with both provolone and asiago) and two according to my recipe (just asiago). That way I'd have something to fall back on if the provolone was really too much. So I put 2 ounces of provolone and 1 of asiago (per sandwich) on two of the sandwiches and 3 ounces of asiago (per sandwich) on the other two.
I then topped every sandwich off with a slice of the beefsteak tomato and sprinkled some oregano on each for flavor.
At long last, these boys were ready for the frying pan. I'm not sure if it's because the mushrooms had already been cooked, because of the natural brown color or just because of their unique texture, but they didn't seem to burn at all in the pan! I could hear them sizzling and see the cheese starting to ooze, so I knew they were cooking, but I was fortunate to not have to worry too much about potentially charring them. I appreciated the ease of grilling considering the involved process I had endured to get the mushrooms ready for cooking. Once they were all grilled up I was ready to dig in.
Taste Review:
The VERY first thing anyone would notice about this sandwich is the pungent smell. Something about the combination of the strong cheeses and the mushrooms creates an aroma that is unmistakable (although it's up to you whether it's a good or bad smell). First we tried the provolone and asiago variety-- Colin took about 1.5 bites before determining that he couldn't eat anymore. Admittedly the texture is VERY weird. GGC describes this sandwich as "as beefy as a non-meat sandwich can get-- it's hearty, mushroomy and definitely toothsome." Well, I would agree and would venture to say that this isn't a good thing. The mushrooms are so dense that when combined with a tomato and cheese it's too much to take in all at once. You need some softer bread to break up the heartiness of the ingredients.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much the tomato slice actually helped to balance out the sharp cheese-- after tasting the provolone and asiago
I finished about 1/3 of the asiago/provolone before opting to switch over to the all asiago variety. There was definitely a noticeable difference between the two. In this case the tomato is less obvious and the cheese is stronger, but since it's the cheese I liked better I didn't mind. However, this wasn't enough to make it a clear favorite of the two choices. I can't actually decide which I thought was better-- both are just slightly different but are ultimately on par in terms of taste. If I were forced to choose I would pick the all asiago variety because even though the cheese was more pronounced, the taste on the whole was milder. But ideally, given the choice, I would choose to not eat either.
They're just messy and pungent and full of flavors that I don't particularly like. You have to LOVE portobello mushrooms to like this sandwich and neither Colin nor I feel that way about them.
FINAL RESULTS:
Sandwich: | Portobello and Provolone |
Gooey-ness: | 6 - by FAR the messiest yet |
Aroma: | 5 |
Appearance: | Crazy looking! Runny and brown-- where's the bread?! |
Taste: | D+ |
Gooey Scale | Aroma Scale |
| 1 = still cold/hard | 1 = can’t smell a thing |
| 2 = slightly melted but still firm | 2 = tender waft |
| 3 = melted evenly | 3 = makes your stomach growl |
| 4 = melted and slightly runny (starting to get those cheese strings between your sandwich and your mouth when you take a bite) | 4 = strong scent |
| 5 = runny | 5 = overpoweringly pungent |
| 6 = sloppy mess! |
Yuck-- not a successful week for us. Let's hope that next week we'll get back on track.
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