THE Mushroom COOKBOOKMichael Hyams and Liz O’Keefe A guide to edible wild and cultivated mushrooms ... and delicious seasonal recipes to cook with themLORENZ BOOKSTHE Mushroom COOKBOOK6 INTRODUCTION 10 WHAT IS A MUSHROOM?12 THE CULTIVATION OF MUSHROOMS 18 FORAGING FOR MUSHROOMS 20 THE GUIDE TO MUSHROOMS 24 WILD MUSHROOMS 26 Morel 30 St George’s 32 Mousseron 34 Girolle 38 Dryad’s saddle 40 Chanterelle 44 Caesar 48 Cep 52 Parasol 54 Giant puffball 56 Pied de mouton 58 Trompette 60 Matsutake 62 Caulifl ower 64 Lobster 66 Lactaire 68 Truffl e 72 Charbonnier 74 Wild Agaricus 76 CULTIVATED MUSHROOMS 78 The Agaricus group 86 Oyster 90 Shiitake 92 Enoki and golden enoki 96 Nameko 98 Shimeji 100 Eryngii 102 Pied bleu 106 Maitake 108 Straw 110 Pom pom 112 Black 114 RECIPES 116 MUSHROOMS IN THE KITCHEN 120 SPRING144 SUMMER182 AUTUMN220 WINTER 252 THE MUSHROOM MAN 254 INDEX 6INTRODUCTIONWelcome to the wild world of mushrooms. Festivals are held for them, national holidays exist in their honour and their mystique has permeated art and literature for centuries. A rich source of nutrition, as well as being incredibly tasty of course, mushrooms are an amazing source of sustainable food that’s also friendly to the environment along the way. Fat-, cholesterol-, and gluten-free and very low in sodium content, mushrooms even help us fight heart disease and HIV, and support the nervous system. Folklore, herbalists and Chinese medicine have all treasured mushrooms for their healing properties. Be assured, mushrooms are powerful things and they are everywhere.Coming in many different forms and guises, mushrooms can taste wood-like, nutty and even of fruit, and can emulate the looks of eggs, fish, coral and vegetation depending on what type they are – eluding and confusing taxonomists along the way. They survive, evolve and are natural decomposers, mostly bringing balance to their natural surroundings and efficiency within a controlled-farming environment.Neither fruit nor vegetable, mushrooms are spongy, fleshy, porous, and fruity parts of a larger fungus body – and are one of the most fantastic natural occurrences. Currently, the largest living organism on earth is thought to be a 3.8km (2½mile) honey fungus in Oregon, existing, sadly, under the soil where no one can see it. And while we are on startling mushroom facts, there are more than 2,300 species of edible and medicinal fungi available. Now that’s a few books’ worth… Individual mushrooms in the wild rely on different weather conditions, surroundings and temperatures to thrive, but one thing that joins them, quite literally, is that they sprout up from a hidden world underground, with some types of mushroom living off and entwining with tree roots in a mutually beneficial arrangement, known scientifically as mycorrhiza. The mushroom co-exists with tree roots, making its own little (or rather large) mushroom city, taking in much-needed oxygen and carbohydrates from the tree to then produce the fruit we call ‘mushrooms’ above ground. Other mushrooms, which fall under the saprophyte category, feed off nutrition in the soil and dead matter, again connected by a larger mushroom body below the surface. Mushroom spores are everywhere – sometimes they have the right conditions they need to grow and sometimes they are taken over by another more dominating mushroom spore, and won’t grow again the next year.Mousserons >8Even though this book covers only 30 or so of the culinary mushrooms we eat in restaurants and at home today, it is fascinating to realise the extent of how mushrooms affect our lives. They are indeed everywhere. Mushrooms are so much more than a food commodity tucked in with the vegetables at the supermarket – when it comes to the forests, earth, construction and medicine, they are a powerhouse, literally holding us together. Fungi are behind fundamental new medicines, materials and energy production, as well as being hidden away in all kinds of foods. Mushrooms are the blue bacteria in blue cheese, the fizz in your drinks and even the protein in pet food. But you don’t have to be a scientist to use mushrooms in the kitchen. Our book touches on the differences between mycorrhizal, parasitic and saprophytic mushrooms, but this volume is really for mushroom cooks who are excited by the culinary possibilities of the ever-growing range of wild and cultivated mushrooms becoming available. Used in some of the most inventive cuisines, mushrooms are our passion, and we hope to pass that on to you. The Mushroom Cookbook can be dipped into wherever you please – you can start by cooking a certain mushroom in a recipe and look up information on it in the directory if you like it or start by devouring the profiles to find which mushroom you fancy experimenting with first. Let the journey begin!Michael Hyams and Liz O’Keefe26WILD MUSHROOMS – MORELOTHER NAMES Dryland fi sh, molly moochers, hickory hens, merkels, sponge mushroomLATIN NAMES Morchella vulgaris, Morchella esculenta, Morchella elataUSUALLY FOUND IN UK, Europe, the USA, Canada, TibetSEASON March to JulyThe mighty morel shows up loud and proud amongst forest fl oors around about March and heralds spring in abundance all over the northern hemisphere. The morel has many variations, differing only slightly from each other, with the black morel, yellow morel and white morel being the most commonly known and coveted throughout Europe and the USA. As soon as January hits, we are thinking about these little black to off-white, almost tree-like, mushrooms and hoping for an early start. This mushroom looks like no other: its brilliant-white hollow stem is where any similarities with other fungi end, as what grows on top of it is a black to sometimes grey to white oval dome of intricate crevices, looking a little like a sea coral or honeycomb, with the texture of a young or pickled walnut. They look fantastical, as if an alien life-force or little distorted candle fl ames have taken over the forest – and they are key in the wild mushroom calendar as the fi rst prized and precious mushroom of any real commercial availability in the year.The fi rst fl ush is from China, then the fi rst European fl ush usually starts in Turkey, which has a long season, but you can then fi nd morels throughout Europe until early summer, until the USA and Canada see the season out to July, depending as ever on the weather. Demand for morels has always been high across Europe and the USA, and has increased dramatically in the UK over the last 15 years, as people become more accustomed to a larger array of wild mushrooms. Tricky to fi nd, morels are usually camoufl aged by their natural environment. They grow amongst dead leaves left over from winter or in little nooks and crannies at the base of forest trees, where they fi nd the best moisture and shade from the springtime sun. A thing of beauty, popping up either singularly or in spaced-out mini clusters of two or threes amongst decomposing winter leaves, foragers have to get close up to the ground to even see them most of the time. It’s backbreaking work that has to be done in the precious few daylight hours of early spring. But like the supermodel mushroom it is, the morel is worth it and they shine out like little beacons to those in the know.One of the mycorrhizal mushrooms, morels have a very strong relationship with trees and grow in unison with the roots, sharing nutrients. As with many mushrooms, morels have been known to pop up in the same place for years. It has been recently discovered that morels also fruit just after forest fi res on burn sites, leading to some commercial foragers in the USA and Finland, in particular, taking to the ‘slash and burn’ approach to encourage morel growth. Despite the questionable success of this and its implications on the natural environment, commercial morel cultivation has been proved near-impossible so far, although the mushrooms are great acclimatisers themselves, appearing in urban settings like gardens and green areas where rotting wood resides. > continues overleafMorel THE SUPERMODEL Next >