Portabella mushrooms

I love them sliced and sauteed long and slow with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and Worcestershire sauce. Taste as you go and add more of any of those three things as needed. Simple and delicious.

Thanks for the expanded story, pierino. I live in Berkeley, so I totally "get" the opinionated vegan faction. Good thing that they at least eat mushrooms in Basque country--it could've been an even bigger challenge.

I don't use them much. But I do buy the baby bellas sometimes. They are very tasty. I make mushroom mousse with the baby bellas - delicious.

I don't buy portabellas myself and am dying to hear why anyone would insist on them for a Basque meal (I've cooked my share of those). But, if I'm at a meeting that includes lunch... If one sandwhich is portabella mushroom, roasted pepper, and goat cheese, while the other choice is a salty, processed slice of turkey with a limp lettuce leaf, then hands down, I'll go for the mushroom.'

I love mushrooms of all kinds, and while I agree that portabella mushrooms aren't as flavorful as others, they'll do in a pinch, and they still have that mushroomy umami flavor I love. I don't go out of my way to buy them, but I find them to be useful stuffing mushrooms (that is, mushrooms stuffed with some sort of filling).
I also tend to agree with Sam1148--portabellas are an "accessible" mushroom, and while there are more flavorful mushrooms out there, portabellas are just fine.

Try it with aheavy handful of chopped cilantro, Pierno.

They are available and relatively cheep. If you can't make them taste good, that's a failure of the cook not the ingredient. Offal was often derided as being 'cheep' and peasant food and trending now that we're supposed to be austere, chowing down on 30 dollar plates of pork cheeks thinking 'oh how great peasant food is if treated right' or we're "eating snout to tail' when in fact your eating trending stuff re purposed for wealthy people paying big bucks to 'slum' in the culinary world.

While there are much better mushroom available, sometimes they aren't accessible to most people or cost prohibitive and frankly most people except the very dedicated wouldn't care in a party situation.
and portabells (brown mushroom). make a great mushroom soup..or on pizza, omeltes or stuffed with spinach. In most of America there were unheard off until the early 80's. Prehaps one day we'll get more flavorful mushrooms available to mid-America, and I can see it happening as Shiataki and semi dried 'wild' chantrells are appearing at my local store. (still expensive).

I do not like portabella mushroom any more than I like zucchini.

They both take on the flavors rather than have a flavor of their own.

That being said, the definition of Hamas is "supporters as a legitimate fighting force defending Palestinians from a brutal military occupation" Not sure how that applies to a vegetarian cook.

Oh pierino, I cannot resist your questions.

And who had the foolish idea that they constitute a vegetarian burger? Hard to eat, hardly a protein source -- umami on bread. Hope for a tasty sauce.

"Hamas vegetarian wing of the food community" that's pretty funny.

I find the small ones useful, certainly more flavorful than their white cousins. I've occasionally used the large ones, sliced, to add umami to dishes and since they have a more concentrated flavor than the little guys, I'll substitute them if the cost is right. I'm not much of a mushroom guy so take all that with a grain of salt.

I have to object to your challenge about finding portabella's in any "authentic" recipes because I know you know that name, as well as "crimini" only date back to the 80's. There are plenty of recipes calling for "brown mushrooms" though which are, in fact, the same species and date back to the 1700's.

That's funny, because I love them. In fact, I had them tonight in a quesadilla - portabellas and red onions that were sauteed, added roasted red peppers, melty white cheese (just a little) avocado, cilantro, sour cream, etc. They were really good quesadillas with portabellas!. I think the flavors are so much better than button mushrooms for an 'only mushroom dish;, but I will certainly cry uncle that they aren't the best tasting that might beavailable. But they are easy and affordable. And, I live in Indiana, which makes my mushroom shopping probably a little different than yours!