In a skillet, brown the sausage over medium to medium high heat, using a spoon or spatula to break it into very small pieces (this is one of those moments I wish I owned one of these to make the job a little easier). As always, stir and move the meat around as needed, but don’t overdo it such that the meat is unable to get nice and brown. Remember, caramelization = more flavor.
Once the meat is fully cooked, scoop it out of the pan onto a large plate lined with a couple layers of paper towels. After it is cool enough to handle, use your fingers to crumble the meat into smaller pieces if needed (the finer the better). Mix together the cream cheese with the sausage in a bowl until well combined.
Meanwhile, rinse the mushrooms under cold water to remove the dirt and then dry thoroughly with paper towels or a clean kitchen cloth. Remove the stems and discard (or, if you are more frugal and awesome than me, you could save the stems, chop ‘em up, and throw them in your next batch of tomato meat sauce). Set the mushrooms in a 9×13 glass baking dish, stem side up, and season with salt and pepper.
In a small bowl, combine the Parmesan cheese, Panko bread crumbs, parsley, oregano, and salt and pepper to taste.
Next is assembly. Fill each mushroom cap with a heaping tablespoon of the sausage and cream cheese mixture and cover with a generous amount of the cheese and breadcrumb topping.
Once all the mushrooms have been filled and topped, drizzle them with a little extra virgin olive oil (you could also put the oil in a misto and spray them generously). Bake for about 15 minutes at 425 degrees until the mushrooms are tender, then turn the broiler on high for 2 minutes until golden brown.
If you don’t have Panko breadcrumbs, I would advise against using fine breadcrumbs and would instead encourage you to increase the amount of Parmesan cheese. Panko breadcrumbs provide a light and airy crunch, whereas finer breadcrumbs seem heavy and grainy to me and would not be a good addition to this dish.
For convenience, I use dried oregano and parsley, but feel free to use fresh if you have it. You could also change the spice combinations, using basil, thyme, or even rosemary if desired.
Instead of sprinkling the topping directly over the filled mushrooms, a technique that worked well for me was to dip the mushrooms into the bowl containing the topping. Then, using my fingers, I pressed the topping into the cream cheese and sausage mixture until it was fully covered. This helped maximize the amount of topping that adhered to the filling and minimized spillage in my baking pan.
Originally Submitted
4/24/2012
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