Side · In Afrikaans: Gevulde sampioene

Stuffed braai mushrooms

Name: Stuffed braai mushrooms
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 18 min
Total time: 38 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: South African
Ingredients: 8 large brown mushrooms, stalks removed; 200 g feta, crumbled; 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped; 2 tbsp thyme leaves; 4 tbsp olive oil; 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce; 1 lemon, juiced; ½ tsp cayenne pepper; salt and black pepper

Large brown mushrooms filled with feta, garlic and thyme, in foil over medium coals. The one vegetarian item that does not look like an apology next to a steak.

Large brown mushrooms are available everywhere in South Africa and are the obvious answer to what vegetarians eat at a braai. Their advantage is structural: they bring their own bowl.

Prep: 20 min
On the fire: 18 min
Serves: 4
Effort: easy

Large mushrooms next to wors on the grid over the coals — Ossewa · CC BY 4.0

How hot

Medium

You can hold your hand over the grid for 6 seconds · ≈ 175–200 °C

Every coal stage explained →

Which wood

Rooikrans

spicy, resinous

Method

Prepare the mushrooms

Twist out the stalks and finely chop the tender parts. Do not wash the caps, brush them — they take up water like a sponge, and wet mushrooms steam instead of browning.
Mix the filling

Combine the chopped stalks with feta, garlic, thyme, half the oil, lemon juice and cayenne. Go easy on the salt; the feta brings plenty.
Season the caps

Brush the insides with the rest of the oil, season, and put a few drops of Worcestershire into each. The trick is sauce directly on the mushroom, not only in the filling.
Fill and wrap

Spoon the filling in loosely and wrap each mushroom tightly in foil, open side up. The foil keeps the juice that would otherwise drip into the coals — and the juice is the best part.
Braai

15 to 18 minutes over medium coals, six seconds on the hand test. Do not turn them. They are done when they feel soft and the foil is steamy inside.
Open carefully

Unwrap and tip onto the plate with the juice. It is hot and it steams — and that liquid is the sauce.

Tips

You can skip the foil and put them straight on the grid, open side up. Smokier and drier; both have their supporters.
To convince meat-eaters, put a spoon of chakalaka into the filling. Otherwise the heat is missing next to wors and chops.
They will happily sit wrapped for half an hour before cooking, which makes them ideal when you are already standing at the fire.

Vegetarian at a South African braai often means, in practice, eating the sides and leaving the meat. Stuffed mushrooms are the simplest way to change that, because they are a dish rather than a gap.

What makes them work is their shape. A large mushroom cap is a bowl that releases juice as it cooks — umami, salt and fat at once. In foil that juice stays in the mushroom, and you end up eating the sauce with it.

The only rule: do not wash them. Mushrooms are mostly water already, and anything you add comes out of the browning.

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