Creole Sautéed Mushrooms with Sherry

Mushrooms have a way of soaking up whatever you give them. That's their gift and their danger. Cook them timid and they taste like nothing. Cook them bold, with good butter and dry sherry and the right amount of Creole seasoning, and they become something worth fighting over at the table.

At Lagniappe, we serve these alongside our blackened ribeyes, and I've watched grown men ignore their steak to get another spoonful. The secret is patience at the start. You need to let those mushrooms release their water and brown properly before you add anything else. Crowding the pan or rushing that step gives you steamed mushrooms, and steamed mushrooms are a sad thing indeed.

My grandmother Evangeline taught me that sherry belongs in a proper New Orleans kitchen as much as hot sauce does. She kept a bottle of dry sherry next to her stove, and she'd add a splash to mushrooms, to cream sauces, to her gumbo when nobody was looking. The alcohol cooks off but leaves behind something warm and nutty that makes everything taste more like itself. That's the bayou way: build flavor in layers until the last bite is as good as the first.