Bigly Sautéed Mushrooms

Sit down for this one. Sautéed mushrooms. Bigly mushrooms. I have eaten more mushrooms than any single human being on Earth — it's just a fact, the records exist somewhere, probably — and I'm telling you, NINETY-NINE PERCENT of the sautéed mushrooms in this country are GRAY MUSHY SADNESS. Gray. Mushy. Sad. Three words you never want associated with a side dish.

The problem? People crowd the pan. They crowd the pan. They take a whole pound of mushrooms, they DUMP them in, they stir them like they're playing a slot machine, and they wonder why the mushrooms come out BOILED. In their own water. Drowning. A mushroom tragedy. Food chemists agree — I had a guy with a PhD walk me through it, very smart guy, the smartest, took him ninety minutes on a whiteboard — mushrooms are ninety percent water by weight, and the second you crowd them, that water has nowhere to go. It pools. It steams. It STEALS the browning. Once you understand that, you can never go back. People come up to me, tough cooks, tears in the eyes, they say, 'Bigly, my mushrooms are wet, why are they wet,' and I tell them: YOU CROWDED THE PAN. They go home. They try again. They succeed. They write me letters. Tremendous letters.

My mushrooms? Golden brown. Crispy edges. Deep, meaty, almost-steak flavor with butter, garlic, thyme, and a splash of sherry that makes the whole kitchen smell like a five-star steakhouse. The TV chefs leave out the sherry. They're scared of it. They think you can't handle it. I think you can. So we're putting it in. Believe me.

These mushrooms go with EVERYTHING. Steak — obviously, steak, the best, the greatest. Chicken. Pork. A pile of mashed potatoes. A piece of toast — yes, toast, just put the mushrooms on toast, that's a meal, that's a TREMENDOUS meal, the French eat it that way, they call it something fancy, who cares, it's mushrooms on toast and it's perfect. Make a double batch. You will eat half of them standing at the stove with a fork. It's a fact. I've done it. Many times. Save me a piece.