I've been making this side dish for many years, often with a few tweaks here and there. My Mom used to make this, and I could never get enough of it. She wasn't Italian, but could cook as good as any other Italian in my Dad's family!
I'm pretty sure that she used a Red Wine that my Grandfather made in his wine cellar, but I'm using a Merlot wine. So, I would assume that any dry red wine would work here. I have such great memories playing under my Grandfather's grape vine that provided a shady place out of the sun. My grandparents had the biggest vegetable garden that I had ever seen for a residential area. Grandma grew tomatoes (the best taste ever!), green beans, eggplant, and they had a fig tree. I'm sure there were other vegetables but I can't remember them all. I remember the chicken coop, and still have disturbing memories when Grandma slaughtered the chickens. If my memory is correct, the hens in the coop were for laying eggs. She went on a bus into Paterson, New Jersey to get live chickens, that would later become dinner.
Grandma made the best pizza from scratch, topped with her crushed tomatoes, fresh garlic, and some freshly grated Locatelli Peccorino Romano cheese. Sometimes she would add some anchovies, yum! There was NO mozzarella on her pizza anywhere, and it really didn't need it. Everything she made was from scratch, and a lot of it came from her garden.
Okay, moving on to today's recipe!
Ingredients:
an 8oz. pack of Baby Bella OR White mushrooms sliced
1 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (Extra Light)
1 Tbsp Butter (REVISED)
1/4 tsp Fine Sea Salt
1/8 tsp ground black pepper
1/8 tsp garlic powder
1/8 tsp crushed red pepper flakes (or less)
1/2 cup Merlot wine
Directions:
First thing is to make sure your mushrooms are cleaned. Add olive oil and butter to a medium saute or frying pan. Have the burner set to medium high heat and add the mushrooms to the pan. Toss them with tongs for about 2 minutes. Lower the flame to medium. Next, add the salt, pepper, and garlic powder, then toss the mushrooms to distribute the spices. Add the crushed red pepper and toss again to mix. Finally, add the Merlot wine (or any dry red), turn the heat up to high until the wine has cooked off. Keep tossing and coating the mushrooms with the wine until the wine has completely disappeared. That's it!
I have always winged it with the spices before measuring them out today. I adjusted the final measurements in the Ingredients list above. I didn't have enough salt (for my taste), and the red pepper was so hot on my tongue that I cut that back. Even the wine wasn't enough, but like I said the amounts have been adjusted in the Ingredients.
I like to have this as a side along with my morning scrambled eggs. It is also a good side for some beef dishes. Since I'm the only one that eats mushrooms in my house (hubby doesn't like them at all), I only used the one pack of mushrooms. If you have a bigger family, go ahead and double or triple them, but you will need a bigger pan.
Notes:
Adding butter to the oil in the frying pan has made this an irresistible side dish! Once I tasted them, I couldn't stop eating them and I ate the whole bunch of mushrooms!!
Based on the ingredients used the entire recipe is approximately 4.5g net carbs. It should give you around 1 and 1/2 cups of mushrooms for the full recipe.
Serving size = 1/2 cup with 1.5g net carbs
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