Stuffed champignons with parsley and almond cream are a delicate yet flavorful dish to prepare as a side or chic and refined finger food appetizer, perfect for accompanying aperitifs at buffets. It’s a gluten-free recipe, very easy to make, and can be served hot or cold, thus both the parsley cream and the mushrooms can be prepared well in advance; just keep them both well covered in the fridge and take them out at least an hour before stuffing and serving them.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Economical
- Preparation time: 15 Minutes
- Portions: 12
- Cooking methods: Stove
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Autumn, Winter
Ingredients
- 12 champignon caps
- 1 bunch parsley
- 1 tbsp grated parmesan
- to taste fine salt
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 tbsp dry white wine
- 20 shelled almonds
- 12 almonds for garnish
Preparation
Wash the parsley and pat it with a kitchen towel. Remove the leaves from the stems and place them in the bowl of a mixer, along with the cheese, 25 almonds, and blend, pouring in the oil in a thin stream until you get a smooth, fluid, yet not liquid cream. If the mixture is too liquid, add the crumbled crumb of a slice of bread and blend again; this will give body to the cream. Adjust the salt, cover the parsley cream, and put it in the fridge to marinate.
If you don’t like parsley, you can prepare an arugula pesto, just as tasty and quick, in the same way as the parsley cream described above.
Clean the mushrooms, gently remove the stems and any dirty or spoiled parts. Place the caps in a non-stick pan with a lid and, over low heat, let them release their water, which you will discard each time (it’s a very easy and quick operation). Repeat this step at least two more times, to ensure the mushrooms become dry. Handle them gently, to avoid breaking.
Transfer the caps to a plate and brown a garlic clove in extra virgin olive oil. When the garlic begins to sizzle, add the caps, raise the heat, and let them brown on both sides, turning them delicately. When the mushrooms are well browned, sprinkle them with wine, let the alcohol evaporate, and add a pinch of fine salt. Cover the caps and let them cook for about 5/7 minutes over low heat, then turn off the heat. During cooking, the mushroom caps will decrease in size; I recommend using rather large champignons, or you can double the number of caps to serve. Let them cool before filling them with parsley cream and garnishing with almonds as needed. Stuffed champignons with parsley and almond cream can be served in cute paper cups to make our tables even more scenic.
If we want to enjoy them hot, after cooking, we will stuff and decorate them right before serving.
