Portabello mushroom & guacamole burger

One of my favourites for a quick dinner is a good vegetarian burger - something easy to make, yet healthy, but tasty enough to feel almost sinful... I use large portabello mushrooms instead of the meat patties, which I season with garlic and herbs before, and top with a delicious guacamole. Even people who feel religious about their burgers will not miss the meat with this concoction!

Three handy tips for a successful relationship with your avocado:
1) If your avocados are not ripe, wrap them in newspaper. (Don't expect this to happen in a matter of minutes, though!)
2) If you want to speed up the ripening process even more, put a banana next to them. (It still will need a good day or longer, depending on how ripe it is to start with)
3) To keep the guacamole from turning brown, don't throw the stone away, but leave it in the bowl with the guacamole - although I don't know how it works, it's done the trick for me every time.

I learnt how to make guacamole when I lived in Mexico - a family recipe handed down through the generations - and I am actually not sure I am supposed to share this with anyone... so if there's no post tomorrow, you know who came to get me!

PS: My friend Kate has just mailed me saying she's tried this on the barbecue and it worked a treat - so here's another idea for these long summer evenings!

Portabello mushroom & guacamole burger
(serves 4)

4 burger buns
4 portabello mushrooms
1 clove garlic (cut into thin sticks)
20 rosemary leaves
olive oil
1 large tomato (sliced)
8 slices emmental cheese

For the guacamole:
2 medium avocados (ripe)
1 shallot (finely chopped or crushed)
1 clove garlic (crushed)
½ - 1 finely chopped green chilli (seed them first if you can't stand the heat!)
1 medium tomato (finely diced)
juice of 1 lime
1 handful coriander leaves (chopped)

Wash the mushrooms and make a a few incisions on the top, making sure not to cut through them. Carefully insert the garlic sticks and rosemary into these incisions, put the mushrooms in an oven-proof dish, drizzle with olive oil and leave to macerate while you prepare the guacamole.
Cut through the avocados around the seed, scoop the flesh into a bowl and reserve the seeds for later. Mash the flesh up with a fork, mix with the lime juice and combine with all the other ingredients. Reserve.
Put the mushrooms in the pre-heated oven (220 C), or under the grill, for 10 minutes. Cut the burger buns horizontally and toast until golden brown and crispy.
Assemble the burgers by dividing the tomato and cheese slices between the buns, place a mushroom on each and top with guacamole and the other half of the bun. Serve immediately with a crisp salad.

Comments

[Alberto]

Johanna, this is a great idea! I'll definitely give it a try it sounds absolutely delicious. Do you have any other vegetable burger "ideas" to share? I'll probably have a few vegetarian friends as guest soon and any new idea is most welcome.

[johanna]

Hi Alberto, if you ask me for more burger recipes, I don't know any off the top of my head. I guess grilled aubergines and peppers with a hummous-style sauce would work as well, but I'd go away from the burger bun there and opt for a nice toasted ciabatta, or, even better, a pitta pocket. But if it's just any vegetarian recipes you're interested in, there's more coming soon, incl. a delicious lasagne. Or for a stylish starter you could try the "Thyme cappuccino" featured yesterday, if you leave out the prawn carcasses for producing the stock, add some porcini while it's cooking, and serve without the prawns, maybe just asparagus or some pan-roasted jerusalem artichokes for the dipping instead. Let me know if you've got a more detailed brief for your vegetarian feast, I'll be glad to help ;-)

[shauny]

i think your blog is brilliant! what a great idea for a quick meal. i'm always looking for ideas to feed my vegetarian boyfriend and this sounds deeeelicious...

[Kate]

Well, we finally found some portobello mushrooms in this part of Italy, so I finally had the occation to try this little number. Very tasty, only variation was using an electric grill instead of the oven, I'm sure grilling the mushrooms on a BBQ would be excellent too, adding that smokey flavor to it. I was skeptical during the preparation of the slits with garlic and rosemary, but pleasantly surprised at how subtle and delicate the flavor was.

Can you possibly start suggesting wine to go with each meal you post?

Ciao ciao,
Kate

[johanna]

funny you should say that, i'll pass that one to chris! since we're no sommeliers, only got to complete 1/4 of the training, I am not sure we find the perfect wine every time... but i might start adding it whenever I find an unusually good match! did you find anything for those burgers then, or are you asking because your choice wasn't that successful?

[Kate]

Sorry, we finished a chilled red Italian wine since it's starting to get pretty hot around here. Wasn't bad, but wasn't a deliberate choice either. Another thing, could you put the number of servings for all posts, some have it and some don't... this helps a "part-time" cook like me estimate how much I actually need to use from the written quantities.