How would you like that mushroom? Medium-rare perhaps? Increasingly, an epic mushroom main course is becoming as essential as a steak or fillet of salmon on restaurant menus around the country.
At Café Chelsea in Manhattan a meaty, ruffle-edged slab of maitake, also known as hen-of-the-woods, is prepared like steak au poivre with a velvety peppercorn-riddled sauce, listed among the grill items and appointed with a steak knife.
“I had to have a vegetarian item and I knew a mushroom could be more than just a side,” said Derek Boccagno, the restaurant’s executive chef. “The mushroom au poivre is one of our most popular dishes.”
Recipe: Maitake au Poivre
The creativity abounds. There’s king oyster mushroom and eggplant kebabs at Acadia in Midtown, porcini fondue at the Lavaux Wine Bar in the West Village and the medley of “Take-out Mushrooms” with scallion pancakes at Tatiana, Kwame Onwuachi’s jewel in Lincoln Center.
At Third Kingdom, a year-old vegan restaurant devoted entirely to mushrooms in the East Village, “the response has been overwhelming, and not just from vegans,” said Ravi DeRossi, an owner. He calls his sautéed and sauced blue oyster mushroom “a real steak house analogue.” Many mushrooms have the beefy minerality and earthiness that’s expected in a rib-eye, along with the satisfying chew.
A risotto or a pasta dish involving mushrooms, like the tagliatelle al funghi del bosco, one of several mushroom pastas at Rezdôra in New York, is not uncommon. More cutting edge is the mushroom potpie that Brasserie Fouquet in Manhattan offered as a turkey alternative on its Thanksgiving menu. Crisp, fried mushrooms are also making appearances: tempura-battered mushrooms at Hamlet & Ghost in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.,and a portobello mushroom Milanese as prepared at Boat House in Tiverton, R.I. Marissa Lo, the chef at Boat House, said she’s gotten great feedback on the Milanese. “People order it because they’re curious and then they’re pleasantly surprised,” she said.
Recipe: Portobello Mushroom Milanese
Even Pat LaFrieda, the baron of beef, is meeting the mushroom movement halfway with his new 50Cut, a blend of beef and oyster, trumpet, shiitake and lion’s mane mushrooms that cooks and tastes like all-beef hamburger.
It’s worth noting that these mushroom dishes are all cooked. Winson Wong, a founder of Afterlife, a Ridgewood, Queens, company that grows and sells mushrooms to restaurants, cautions to “not serve or eat mushrooms raw because they can be toxic.” He’s not talking about the poisonous ones or mushrooms you might gather in a woodland, but all mushrooms. Heating will blunt the risk. And besides, mushrooms taste so much better once they’re cooked, even to add to a salad.
Increasingly home cooks can buy mushrooms other than everyday white button, cremini, portobellos and shiitakes in stores and at farmers markets and also online. But even with a mushroom wardrobe that’s more Gap than Gucci, it’s important to know how mushrooms, even commonplace white buttons, are best cared for and prepared.
Unfortunately most mushrooms come encased in some kind of plastic container. Even when sold loose, by the pound, shoppers inevitably collect them in a plastic bag. Like moisture, airtight plastic is the enemy of fresh mushrooms; they need to breathe and are not degraded if they dry out as cooking reconstitutes them.
Purchase your mushrooms however they’re sold, but transfer them to an open paper or netted bag to store them in the refrigerator, preferably not in the vegetable drawer, which is a moist area. They’ll last a good week. For long term storage, try dehydrating them, but never freeze them raw unless your goal is a soggy mess.
As for cleaning mushrooms, the bottoms of the stems should be trimmed off and with some varieties, like shiitakes, the stems should be discarded or steeped in hot water to make a broth, because they’re so woody, they’re inedible. Any bits of soil can be brushed off. You do not have to wash them, but if you insist, spread them out on paper towel to dry completely before storing them.
Sautéing is the simplest cooking method and as they sizzle they’ll shrink and may seem to soak up all the fat, but eventually they’ll release some of it back into the pan so the cooking can finish. Grilling, simmering in stock and roasting are other methods to use. “Mushroom Gastronomy” by Krista Towns, published earlier this year, is a worthwhile guide with mushroom-by-mushroom profiles and recipes like king trumpet char siu and black pearl oyster mushroom Stroganoff.
With the exception of rich, golden chanterelles and precious, nutty-tasting morels, which still can only be gathered by foragers, today’s mushrooms, even huge king trumpet, shaggy lion’s mane and almost neon-blue oyster mushrooms, among many others, are not “wild,” despite what the menu says. They are raised and harvested in indoor urban facilities. They require no agricultural land, little water or energy, no chemical protection and have a minimal carbon footprint. In short, they’re sustainable.
Mushrooms deserve to be on your shopping list, sizzling in your skillet and commanding your dinner plate.
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