Mushrooms

[chromedome]

On 29/10/2017 at 2:18 AM, quiet1 said:

 

I think that tends to make it worse. Ex-steel towns at least like to brag about "we made the steel for Cool Thing." We've run into a variety of interesting claims on road trips, I usually don't stress about accuracy and figure whatever helps people feel better about where they live.

 

It's at least something. A couple of towns in my native Nova Scotia proudly proclaim that they're exactly halfway between the North Pole and the equator, which is perhaps even sadder. 

[Nyleve Baar]

On 10/22/2017 at 7:54 AM, Anna N said:

 

I used to make the occasional trip up to Peterborough which is north of here and there was often a “mushroom man” at the farmers’ market where you could get quite an assortment of foraged mushrooms.

The mushroom guy is still there. He has white and cremini mushrooms, portobellos, shitakes and a variety of oyster mushrooms - yellow, white, pink. Very sweet guy - always smiling.

I have a secret foraging spot for porcini mushrooms near me on a friend's property. They grow with insane abandon during good years. Or else they don't come up at all, which has been the case for the past two years. When they're abundant I can fill a bushel basket with them in about an hour. Usually I just have to stop picking because I can't deal with them all before they go wormy. I still have a couple of jars of dried ones from the good years. Hoping next year they come back - I was very disappointed this fall. Mushrooms are a mysterious thing.

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Has anyone figured out how to judge when to go out in search of mushrooms? In Colorado the season is late summer into the fall, but the real question is whether they flush after a soaking rain, and if so, how long after the rain? After a heavy snow year to saturate the ground, with occasional rain to keep it moist? It's the hardest part about mushrooming--when to start looking. Nothing quite so disappointing as finding lots of porcini that are flabby and wormy because we should have been out there a couple of days earlier. I suppose mycologists have their theories.

 

By the way, did you see the story in the food section of the New York Times about amanita muscaria? I thought it made a relatively  poisonous mushroom sound  a little too attractive to neophytes. Plus the author said that they can be mistaken for other members of the family, like Destroying Angel (amanita virosa), which is nonsense. Amanita virosa is an elegant white mushroom--amanita muscaria is chunky and crude in comparison, with what we call cottage cheese all over the red cap. Nothing else looks like that. However our experience is that porcini grow in the same places as the amanita muscaria, so when we find a patch we look closely for porcini. So they're not entirely useless!

 

Nancy in Pátzcuaro

[Katie Meadow]

I noticed the same thing right away. There was absolutely no mention of the fact that the amanita muscaria is not edible--hardly a harmless mistake and very surprising for the NYT. Faeries love those cute red mushrooms with the white polka dots. And that's why faeries are now extinct.

[quiet1]

Don't eat mushrooms fairies live in seems a reasonable idea to hang on to. Although I am not brave enough to go mushrooming at all.

 

on the subject - what mushrooms should we have in-house for last minute dishes? I know porcini dries well, are there any others that are easy to rehydrate and whip up into something tasty like an omelette or pasta?

[SLB]

For me, duxelles made with any ole' [edible] mushrooms and kept in the freezer perform fine in omelettes or pasta. 

 

The only thing I wouldn't do with frozen already cooked mushrooms is salad.  

 

That's just me, tho.  

Edited October 31, 2017 by SLB (log)

[quiet1]

1 hour ago, SLB said:

For me, duxelles made with any ole' [edible] mushrooms and kept in the freezer perform fine in omelettes or pasta. 

 

The only thing I wouldn't do with frozen already cooked mushrooms is salad.  

 

That's just me, tho.  

 

 

I was wondering about dried also - our freezer tends to get a bit crammed so if we can have shelf stable things that's good. Although I usually think of freezing sliced mushrooms, not duxelles. I like that idea. The trick will be to do it when no one else is home so some of it actually gets to the freezer. (My SO will just eat cooked mushrooms right from the fridge as a snack. Maybe with some rice if there is any in the rice cooker.)

[SLB]

On reflection, I probably would put frozen already cooked mushrooms in salad.  Particularly if we're talking chopped salad. 

 

I like mushrooms.  Basically I'm thinking, how is it gonna be bad.  

Edited October 31, 2017 by SLB (log)

[liuzhou]

Most mushrooms dry well. Dried shiitake are highly prized here in China. They are not considered inferior to fresh, but just different.

 

We also get many others as detailed here.

 

I currently have two types of dried shiitake, white boletus, cèpes (boletus edulis), bamboo pith mushrooms and honey mushrooms in the pantry.

[TicTac]

13 hours ago, Nyleve Baar said:

The mushroom guy is still there. He has white and cremini mushrooms, portobellos, shitakes and a variety of oyster mushrooms - yellow, white, pink. Very sweet guy - always smiling.

I have a secret foraging spot for porcini mushrooms near me on a friend's property. They grow with insane abandon during good years. Or else they don't come up at all, which has been the case for the past two years. When they're abundant I can fill a bushel basket with them in about an hour. Usually I just have to stop picking because I can't deal with them all before they go wormy. I still have a couple of jars of dried ones from the good years. Hoping next year they come back - I was very disappointed this fall. Mushrooms are a mysterious thing.

 

Nyleve - if you ever wish a partner to pick with you (who will happily bring some other shrooms for pure variety pleasure), give me a shout, I am not too far and love love loveeeee mushrooms!

 

 

[liuzhou]

Sad to hear of the death of Antonio Carluccio, one of the people who first turned me onto the pleasures of wild mushrooms, long before anyone had heard the term "foraging".

 

More information on this topic.

[heidih]

Stepbrother returned from Poland last night and gifted us these dried mushrooms. I'm going to grind some for "flavor powder" , make a riff on XO sauce, and we are planning soup tonight. USDA beagle snagged the sausages.....

 

ETA: image

Edited June 25, 2018 by heidih (log)

[kayb]

I ordered some Forest Glory dried morels, as I'm in a part of the world where we never seem to get, and certainly don't find, fresh morels. Any tips on how to use them?

 

 

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Morels are hollow and therefore take well to stuffing with something rich and creamy--crab? Cream goes very well with morels. I once made a whole tenderloin served with morels gently simmered in cream for New Year's Day dinner. It was quite nice (major understatement). I think reconstituting your dried morels in cream would be wonderful.

 

Nancy in Pátzcuaro

[Okanagancook]

Morels can harbour grit so be sure to rinse well.  Also cook them well.  

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

Yes indeed. All those little pits and hollows can hold a surprising amount of dirt that won't let go without a fight. Soak them well and have at it with a toothbrush or other small brush. Don't be too rough, though.

 

Nancy in Pátzcuaro

[kayb]

Thanks, y'all. Will definintely focus on soaking the little sweethearts. And mushrooms in cream over steak sounds pretty glorious.

 

[gfweb]

So I did the experiment...

Method -2 mushrooms in a sealed plastic bag and two in a closed (Burger King) paper bag. Store in fridge 8 days.

 

Results-   Starting weight paper bag fungi 2.3 oz, plastic ones 2.1 oz

 

The paper bag mushrooms lost 40% of their weight...the plastic bag stored ones lost 0.5% of  their weight

 

Both looked fine at the end.

 

Fig 1 Before storage. Paper bag shrooms are the first two

 

 

Fig 2 After 8 day storage

 

Fig 3 Crossection

 

 

Discussion

Looks like plastic  bag storage has no ill effects after 8 days and preserves volume and weight. If one plans to cook them down anyway the preservation of volume may not matter, but if I wanted caps to stuff with sausage and cream cheese then the loss of volume in paper stored mushrooms might be an issue.

Edited October 21, 2019 by gfweb (log)

[heidih]

Perhaps the condition of the purchased product matters. I poke holes in the plastic, add a paper towel and use pretty quickly cuuz - why wait. The above recipe from Foods of the World P France rang a bell but - can you taste the crab 

[gfweb]

1 minute ago, heidih said:

Perhaps the condition of the purchased product matters. I poke holes in the plastic, add a paper towel and use pretty quickly cuuz - why wait. The above recipe from Foods of the World P France rang a bell but - can you taste the crab 

These were about as fresh as you can get. Straight from the grower with gills still pink. Perhaps an older one would fare differently 

[heidih]

16 minutes ago, gfweb said:

These were about as fresh as you can get. Straight from the grower with gills still pink. Perhaps an older one would fare differently 

 

16 minutes ago, gfweb said:

These were about as fresh as you can get. Straight from the grower with gills still pink. Perhaps an older one would fare differently 

 

  http://www.premiermushrooms.com/   No farming operation is easy...but attention to issues is heartening and they are good  

[MokaPot]

Hi Guys. Question about short-term freezing of cooked "white" mushrooms. Reason I want to cook and freeze is because I won't be able to use them before they go bad. Photo is posted below. I'll be cutting the mushrooms into smaller pieces (before cooking and freezing). Usually, I cut the mushrooms into 4 "identical" pieces (slicing through the "axes") rather than into thin slices. (Hope that made sense.)

 

I've done this in the past with pretty good results except for some toughness in the stems. (No freezer burn flavor, so that's good.)

 

I don't have any type of vacuum sealer. I would be using Ziploc freezer bags & squeezing out as much air as possible.

 

Is there anything else I can do to get a good / better result?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

[heidih]

33 minutes ago, MokaPot said:

Hi Guys. Question about short-term freezing of cooked "white" mushrooms. Reason I want to cook and freeze is because I won't be able to use them before they go bad. Photo is posted below. I'll be cutting the mushrooms into smaller pieces (before cooking and freezing). Usually, I cut the mushrooms into 4 "identical" pieces (slicing through the "axes") rather than into thin slices. (Hope that made sense.)

 

I've done this in the past with pretty good results except for some toughness in the stems. (No freezer burn flavor, so that's good.)

 

I don't have any type of vacuum sealer. I would be using Ziploc freezer bags & squeezing out as much air as possible.

 

Is there anything else I can do to get a good / better result?

 

Thanks in advance!

 

 

 

I roast them with a touch of olive oil and salt. Cut as you described. Eliminates - in my experience - any slime factor when using later. Concentrates flavor nicely too and as they physically concentrate - - don't take up much space. I pop the stems off and just freeze "as is" - use to flavor broths/sous. You can pick them out or strain once they have given you their all. Give them a squeeze like un-cool tea baggers do.

Edited October 1, 2020 by heidih (log)

[TicTac]

Figured I would spread the mushroom love - this I picked with my 7 year old in about 40 minutes 
My guess is 5-7 lbs 

 

😁

[MokaPot]

1 hour ago, heidih said:

 

I roast them with a touch of olive oil and salt. Cut as you described. Eliminates - in my experience - any slime factor when using later. Concentrates flavor nicely too and as they physically concentrate - - don't take up much space. I pop the stems off and just freeze "as is" - use to flavor broths/sous. You can pick them out or strain once they have given you their all. Give them a squeeze like un-cool tea baggers do.

 

@heidih, are you saying that you separate the caps from the stems, freeze the raw stems ("as is"), then roast the caps? Thanks!