News You Can Bruise for 2005 January 6

You come up with a great name for a dish and then it turns out someone else came up with it in 1998. They provided no recipe, though, so this is still groundbreaking stuff. I made this tonight for my "secondhand-eponymous dishes" mini-dinner party (also on the menu: Caesar salad and bananas Foster).

Basically you are going to put oyster mushrooms at the bottom of a ramekin (to simulate an oyster in its shell), and then fill it up with your favorite Oysters Rockefeller topping, except a little goopier to make up for the lack of oyster liqueur. Then you bake it and broil it. Here's the recipe I synthesized which tastes good, though I have no frame of reference to compare it to. It makes 4 ramekins worth.

• MUSHROOMS
  • 4 oz package mushrooms
• FILLING
  • 1 T butter
  • 2 cups fresh spinach
  • 1/2 onion, chopped
  • 1 T or more chopped parsley
  • 1/4 cup breadcrumbs
  • 1/4 cup shredded cheese
  • Zest of 1 lemon
• WHITE SAUCE
• A little less than 1 T butter
• 1 T flour
• 1/4 cup milk

Chop the MUSHROOMS and put them at the bottom of ramekins.

Saute the spinach and onion in the butter until the onion is a little brown and the spinach has wilted. Put the mixture in the food processor, add the rest of the FILLING ingredients, and process.

Make a white sauce out of the WHITE SAUCE ingredients, using the pan you just used for the spinach and onion. (Quick mini-recipe to make white sauce: melt butter, add flour and stir, when it's brown add milk and stir and reduce to a sauce.) Pour the white sauce in the food processor and process again. You are basically making a weird pesto with white sauce instead of olive oil. Then scoop it into the ramekins and smooth it out flat.

Bake for about 12 minutes at 350 degrees, then garnish with more breadcrumbs and finish it by broiling for 2 minutes. Garnish with chopped parsley, hot sauce, lemon juice, or whatever. Tasty!