Mushrooms on Toast

We've been seeing this everywhere... OK, "everywhere" is Jamie at Home where he made this with his Italian friend (who was one of his assistants when he battled Mario in Iron Chef America) and Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares (the original British one, of course!) where it was part of a "modern British menu".

Hmm, that's a potential series for our blog. Modern British Classics. Now we have to find out what British classics are!

I came home one day and there wasn't really anything to eat. For lack of ideas, and because I was feeling lazy (because I was sick! Although, I don't need any excuse to be lazy), I was about to pop in a couple of Jamaican patties when I thought of mushrooms on toast. I knew we had some portobellos in the fridge, as well a baguette bought the day before that was just getting staler and staler and hardening up by the second.



We had a Terra Breads baguette. I don't like it. It's not very French baguette-y at all! I'd rather have one of those Safeway Artisan baguettes; their Artisan line of breads are actually pretty good.

The kitchen gods must have been punishing me for almost resorting to a "ready-meal", because the portobellos were almost FROZEN. For some reason, the fridge was at its coldest setting. Vegetables, especially greens, were frozen and wet!

Look, ice crystals on the mushrooms! (Kinda pretty.)



To appease them, I even decided to remove the gills from the mushrooms. I normally wouldn't because, you know, lazy. After prepping the mushrooms, it was a simple matter of sauteing.



I used both olive oil and butter, added the mushrooms, then added lemon juice and some vinegar after a bit. I used red wine vinegar this time, I believe. We also had some garlic chives (from making pad thai again, heehee) -- and no other herbage -- so I added that to the mix.



When they were more or less done, I added some more butter and some lemon zest.



Then, on the "toast" they went.

(I didn't toast the bread because they were already quite hard and dry from being exposed to air for about 24 hours. I was too lazy to toast them. I know it doesn't take any effort to do so, but I didn't feel like it.)



Again, this is one of those good, simple foods.

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How amazing would this be with a lightly poached egg on top?

We could have used humble button mushrooms here and still be very satisfied.