Mushroom Crostinis Recipe

Chef Guarnaschelli teaches you how to make mushroom crostinis.

On my fantasy valentine’s shopping list, I had the perfect dish. Some sautéed mushrooms with toasted buttery hazelnuts with a touch of Vermouth Start by quartering some white mushrooms and a little bit of sliced shallots. Take about a tablespoon of butter and just get that melting in a skillet. So I take this shallots in this little bit of butter, give them a stir. Just get them on a single layering coated with all that butter, and right away I can tell you that the smell is filling this kitchen. Pinch of salt. Little bit of freshly ground pepper. And then about half pound of this quartered white button mushrooms on top of that. So since I added the mushrooms, I’m adding another sprinkle of salt and pepper just to make sure that I’m really layering these flavors. You want to cook these mushrooms just to get some of that liquid out, dry it out. And leave behind the liquid and in its place a more deep roasted flavor from those mushrooms. That’s the aphrodisiac effect of using white mushrooms in this recipe. While this is cooking, this is the fun part of this recipe. Because there’s always something going on, take a touch more of butter and a small warm skillet. Just somewhat warm so that butter melts starts to make that wonderful frizzly sound. And I’m going to take some hazelnuts that I just crushed with a skillet. And I love to toast this way, plus you can be dramatic. And I’ll flip a little bit. And just get those bubbling in the butter and now I have this wonderful smell filling my kitchen. The wonderful thing about this dish is it’s simple, it’s easy and it offers this intoxicating smells as you're making it. Not something I really associate with making Valentine’s Day special. So after this have been cooking for a couple of minutes, you’re starting to get that water coming out of the mushrooms, that’s when I like to add a little bit of dry vermouth. Just a splash. Just cook down the vermouth just a little bit keeping the mushrooms in a nice single layer. Add a little bit of paprika, just to put a little bit of spice. A little squeeze of fresh lemon juice for brightness. Now my wonderful toasted hazelnuts. I’m just going to pop those in there. Give it a nice stir, toss all that together. And now for serving this. Before you put them on a toasting, give them to your love ones, have a little taste, a little sampling to make sure that it is as delicious as it looks. And now for serving it, very dramatic. A nice spoonful. And that’s when you really can appreciate all those little bits of shallots that are kind of meandering in between all the mushrooms and all the hazelnuts. And you can just put them on toast. Serve them to your love ones, romantic or not, everyone’s going to fall in love with this recipe.