Portobello Schnitzel
With creamy tarragon and mushroom sauce
Comfort food at its best. Fun, easy and quick to make. Heart-warming and surprising to eat. Definitely one to delight your loved ones with after a long day of work! Try to get your hands on nice large portobello mushrooms, or if you cannot find them, oyster mushrooms would work fine too. Serve with some golden oven-baked potatoes and a fresh salad for a complete meal.
Ingredients
8 large Portobello’s
12 tablespoons of flour
250 g panko or breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons chicken spices (or a mixture of salt, pepper, smoked paprika powder, thyme, onion and garlic powder)
Sunflower oil for frying
250 g mushrooms (chestnut or similar)
2 shallots
4 garlic cloves
100 ml white wine
250 ml cooking cream
A small bunch of tarragon
Pepper and salt
Fresh chives and lemon for garnish
Method
Start peeling the portobellos by pulling the brown skin off the mushroom from the edge towards the centre. Remove the inside, the so-called gills, from the portobello. It’s not super necessary to clean the mushroom this way, but it does give a nice white inside to the schnitzel.
Fry the mushrooms in a dry pan for about 2 to 3 minutes per side. This cooks the portobello and makes the taste more intense. Then leave to cool.
In the meantime, prepare the cream sauce. Chop the shallot and garlic finely and fry gently in a bit of olive oil. Break up the chestnut mushrooms (I quite like to just break up my mushrooms) and add to the pan. Fry for a couple of minutes, then deglaze the pan with white wine. Add the cooking cream, together with the finely chopped tarragon. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and some lemon juice if required. Keep the sauce warm.
To finish the portobello schnitzels, prepare 4 small plates. One with the chicken spices, one with flour, one with a thin batter of water and flour, and one with panko. Dip each portobello on both sides into the plates in the same order. Heat up a pan with sunflower oil over medium-high heat and shallow fry the portobellos on both sides until they are golden brown. Then let them dry out on kitchen paper shortly.
Serve immediately with the tarragon cream sauce and finish off with thinly sliced chives and a wedge of lemon. Delicious with a fresh salad and oven baked potatoes. Enjoy!