Mushroom and Leek Paninis
Trying to get me to make any panini other than my favorite one of chicken, mozzarella, arugula, and spicy mayo is a difficult task. Luckily I have this site which forces me out of patterns of comfort and I've been able to get other representations like meatloaf, artichoke and broccoli rabe, and tomato and pesto. Well, another Meatwave season got me to yet another new variation with grilled mushroom and leeks paninis, and these ended up being ones that I particularly was fond of.
Two primary things drove me to this sandwich, the first was the creation of an all vegetarian menu for my buddy's birthday, for which I needed grill-able and filling mains and paninis certainly fall into that category. The second was a desire to grill some leeks, which is not something I do that often and felt like I wanted to give them a bit more representation in my recipe collection.
So I started the recipe around leeks and considered what would pair best with them. I landed on mushrooms as something that would be hearty and complimentary to the mildly sweet and oniony touch of the leeks. Any mushroom medley should work here, and I choose a combo of creminis and shiitake because those were my most affordable and readably available options, save for the ubiquitous buttons.
I also picked up fontina as the cheese of choice, but it took me a bit longer to arrive at the best sauce. I thought the onion and leek combo called for the bite of mustard, but worried that mustard alone would be overpowering, so crafted a dijonnaise where I combined both smooth and whole grain Dijon with mayo, garlic, honey, and black pepper.
All my previous leek recipes focused on serving them whole as a side dish, and to ensure those were tender enough to cut into larger sections for easy eating, I parcooked them before grilling. In this recipe though, my plan was to thinly slice the leeks and I wanted them to deliver a lot of the grilled flavor, so I merely gave them a brushing of oil before setting them over direct heat. They did take awhile to feel tender enough, and they did pick up a lot of charring on the exterior during that time, but that char was part of the point here, so I was pleased with how they turned out.
Once the leeks were done, the mushrooms went on, this time over indirect heat. Mushrooms are pretty easy to grill—I always start them with the gills facing up, cover, and cook until they fill with pockets of water and have reduced in size. At that point they're almost done, so my focus shifts to getting some extra color on them either by finishing them over direct heat or moving them closer to the fire, covering again, and letting them go for a few more minutes.
Once the shrooms were done, I roughly chopped them and also thinly sliced the leeks. I slathered both cut sides of a ciabatta loaf with the dijonnaise, then piled on mushrooms, leeks, and grated fontina. During the sandwich assembly is a good time to preheat the cast iron presses or bricks on the grill that will be used to create the paninis.
With the the presses warmed, I placed three sandwiches on the cool side of the grill and nestled the presses in place using my handy welding gloves. I gave each a good push down to start the compression action before I covered the grill and let them cook.
With the grill now running at a medium heat, it took about five minutes for the bread to get that crusty crunch you want from a great panini. Sometimes I need to flip the sandwiches and continue grilling to get both sides crisp, but on this day they all came out well without any extra work so I just had to slice each sandwich in two and serve.
When crafting the recipe, I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. It didn't look like a ton of filling, but the mushrooms were plenty flavorful with the leeks adding a noticeable mellow sweetness. The double dose of sauce and the cheese were key though because they paninis were also quite creamy and not dry at all. The mustard flavor went really well with everything else without standing out as mustard can sometimes do. Ultimately this panini won't replace my all time favorite one, and none probably will, but it's always nice to be reminded that I need to do something different now and again because the results rarely disappoint.
