Portobello fries.

I’ve been thinking of portobello fries since I left LA. Haha, if you haven’t, catch up on this awesome portobello fries at Bottega Louie here. Yes, I was determined to re-create this dish today. I googled and came across a few recipes here and here.

In the first recipe, the blogger mentioned ‘Wondra’ as the secret ingredient to this dish. Wonder what’s that? I didn’t know what it is so I googled and found out that it is a type of flour used to thicken gravy/sauces, something like cornstarch. As the portobello fries pictures didn’t quite resemble what I had at Bottega Louie, I incorporated this Wondra into the abovementioned 2nd recipe.

What I did was pretty similar to what acozykitchen recipe is, except for a few minor differences:
– I fried it instead of baking.
– I didn’t add garlic powder and oregano into the fries.
– for the basil aioli, I didn’t add pressed garlic as I was already using a garlic mayo. Also, I used truffle oil instead of olive oil.

Steps: After cleaning and slicing up the mushrooms, I sprinkle salt all over them. Let it sit for a few minutes before dusting Wondra all over it. Did a quick and thorough dip into the beaten eggs and roll it in the breadcrumbs mixture.

Here’s for the dip.

Blend them all but the mayo. Stir in the mayo when the ingredients are all mashed up. I used about 15g of basil, 5 tbs of mayo, 2 tbs of oil, some salt and 1/4 lemon (which is too much! should stick to the 1/2 tsp as mentioned in above recipe.)

Ta-dah!

Bottom left: Portobello fries with cheese.
Top: Original portobello fries.
Bottom right: Baked chicken by Mr LY.
LY arranged this plate while I was busy frying and cleaning up the kitchen, so I didn’t get to snap a lot of pictures, nor arrange some greens on the plate.

And the greens and dip came by the side.

Wooh! I would not say it is anything close to what I had in Bottega, but good try Joanna! Haha.

Areas of improvement:
– Do not leave the cut mushrooms out for too long, it loses its moisture and so it doesn’t taste as juicy as it should be.
– Switch on a bigger heat and don’t overcook the mushrooms because it will lose its moisture as well.
– The original tastes much nicer than the parmesan coated ones based on LY’s review.
– Slice the mushrooms thicker! I did mine about 1-1.5 cm thickness and they were too thin. This affects its texture because the mushrooms shrink quite a bit when frying.

It’s rainy Saturday in Dallas. I don’t like rainy days so it was nice to just stay home and whip up dishes. Have a good weekend people!