All Things Mushroom

[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  

[heidih]

Our old cookbook popped up as I was looking for something else. As a kid I LOVED this book. Great color plates and line illustrations. My passion was the mushroom one. Clearly marked re poisonous with skull & cross-bones. The red polka dotted one at lower right was my dream to see "in person". Not gonna happen in Los Angeles.  In Austria my 7 year old "boyfriend" explained to me that sadly no nearby mushroom territory (dang).  In recent years having so many more types of mushrooms available at reasonable cost has been a joy. Asian markets with the meaty King Oyster and the delicate regular oyster, those little enoki and the pricey matsutake! Chanterelles even at Costco I am told. Shroom guys at Farmers Markets love to discuss their fungi. Pushed by a friend I did harvest some true morels whose spores arrived via rose mulch - made him eat them first . 

 

Current favorites, new discoveries?

[dcarch]

Not sure where to post this:

 

Today's news-

 

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/deadly-morel-mushroom-outbreak-highlights-big-gaps-in-fungi-knowledge/

 

dcarch

[rotuts]

@dcarch

 

excellent article. 

 

pleased , yet surprised detailed wormlike this is still supported.

 

and then there wa this line :

 

''''   Records indicated that 12 other locations in California also received batches of the mushrooms. Six of those facilities responded to inquiries from the California health department and the FDA,  '''

 

50 % response rate is not encouraging.  nor is possibly little follow up on those deliquien 6.

 

'' Public Health ''    isn't supported these days as it once was.

 

and back then nit warn perfect either.

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

I've always heard (from mycologists) that no mushroom gathered in the wild should be eaten raw. Even the most benign wild mushroom like boletus edulis (porcini) must be cooked. I once sent a very critical note to a cooking magazine (many years ago) about a recipe that left the porcinis raw in a recipe. I didn't expect a response, but was surprised  to receive one, acknowledging the error. So putting raw or barely cooked morels in the sushi was a big mistake, one that caused serious consequences.

[Katie Meadow]

4 hours ago, dcarch said:

Not sure where to post this:

Today's news -

 

 https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/03/deadly-morel-mushroom-outbreak-highlights-big-gaps-in-fungi-knowledge/

 

dcarch

Good to post this anywhere mushroom eaters lurk. Worth noting if only as a reminder: do NOT eat wild mushrooms raw. Do not eat ANY mushroom that you are not certain about. And maybe don't eat at that restaurant, either. I know some people eat button or cremini shrooms raw in salads, but I've never been a fan of that either.

[rotuts]

@Katie Meadow

 

Exactly.  and if you plan to eat mushrooms at a restaurant

 

ask if they are fully cooked.

 

 

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

I forgot to mention that otherwise perfectly edible wild mushrooms may cause allergic reactions. A good friend (and excellent cook) can't eat chanterelles because his throat closes up, which is undesirable for a number of reasons. I can't eat any of the the inky caps for the same reason. Fortunately I don't really care for them, but it would be a real downer if I couldn't eat chanterelles. By the way, alcohol and the entire inky cap familly (coprinus, I believe, but I haven't looked it up) do not play well together. So no wine with dinner if you're eating any of them.

[AlaMoi]

is  this not the first ever ever ever report of morel "problems"?

 

methinking it was something else in the prep . . . thousands of years of history have issues being wrong . . .

[Katie Meadow]

One other possibility is that they served what are called "false morels,"  another species that looks somewhat like a morel to the amateur picker.  

[rotuts]

what happens over thousands of years

 

suggests probabilities w populations.

 

it says nothings about an individual action. action

 

that's currant.

[liuzhou]

1 hour ago, Katie Meadow said:

One other possibility is that they served what are called "false morels,"  another species that looks somewhat like a morel to the amateur picker.  

 

The article says false morels have been ruled out.