Maybe the Best Mushrooms Ever
fungi DGAF and neither should you
things you’ll need: mushrooms, dried porcinis (or powder or broth), butter, garlic or shallot, thyme, soy sauce/tamari, heavy cream, oil, salt and pepper, and something starchy on the side (polenta, rice, pasta, mashed potatoes, etc.)
used almost exactly this recipe from Sam Sifton (as adapted from Chris Jaeckle) found on The New York Times Cooking site (here is the ingredient list outside the paywall), but another recipe in the same spirit can be found on The Modern Proper with a little less butter and no broth.
incidentally vegetarian and gluten-free, substitute coconut milk and plant-based butter for a tasty vegan alternative.
Chapter 219
Fungi keep it 100% all the time. Fungi were out here not giving a shit long before there were Honey Badgers. There are bazillions of miles of mycelium beneath the surface of everywhere, just transferring food, energy, and information around, keeping the planet alive and going about their magical work.
Even if you hate mushrooms, you eat fungus all the time. It’s the yeast in your bread baking and winemaking, the blue in your cheese, and that white powdery stuff on the surface of your salami. They don’t need you to like them, they are going to continue taking up space, cropping up where they want, and doing their work despite anyone’s feelings on the matter.
You are filled with a deep and nerdy admiration for these polarizing organisms. You are filled with a deep love and admiration for many organisms that other people find distasteful, a lot of those organisms are your best friends and role models.
Your respect for mushrooms extends beyond metaphor. Aside from their untapped medicinal and medical applications, they are also delicious dirt fruit (not to be confused with dirt candy) to be consumed with zeal and delight at their umami goodness. Whether you splurge on fancy forged wild varietals, grow them in a box in your kitchen, or pull the shrink wrap off a box of button/cremini/portabellas (all the same actual mushroom at different growth stages), you are in for a treat.
If you happen to have dried porcinis, soak about 1/2 ounce in 1/2 cup of boiling water for 20 minutes to make a rich tea. Once the tea is brewed, finely chop the reconstituted porcinis. If you don’t have dried porcinis, use a little mushroom broth or powdered mushrooms or whatever stock you have on hand.
Slice, pull apart, or otherwise prepare your mushrooms for browning. Add some good fat to a pan and saute shallot (or garlic) until fragrant. Add mushrooms and chopped porcini, season with thyme, salt, and pepper, then cook until browned.
If you are making a lot of mushrooms or big mushrooms, brown them in batches to avoid crowding your pan. If you are using a wild or less conventional mushroom, they may not release as much liquid, so you can add the shallot/garlic closer to the end of the browning process to avoid bitter/burned alliums.
With your mushrooms returned to the pan, deglaze with your porcini tea/stock and simmer until mostly reduced. Add equal parts cream (coconut milk), soy sauce (tamari), and a little olive oil. Simmer that beautiful pan full of umami goodness until the sauce is as thick and delicious as you want it. Finish with a little pepper and fresh chives if you like.
Serve on polenta, mashed potatoes, rice, pasta, toast, or whatever will catch and sop that saucy magic.
People don’t have to like mushrooms. People don’t have to like you. Either way, they are missing out on something spectacular. Either way, you and your fungal ancestors will continue taking up space and living your best life.
additional nerd stuff I collected about mushrooms, fungi, and mycelium while I was supposed to be writing:
The surprising world of mushrooms by Kayleen Devlin on BBC Earth
The Secret Lives of Fungi by Hua Hsu on The New Yorker
Three Reasons Fungi Are Not Plants by Brian Lovett, PhD on The American Society of Microbiology
The Mycelium Revolution Is upon Us by Eben Bayer on Scientific American
Fantastic Fungi on Netflix
6 ways mushrooms can save the world a TED Talk from Mycologist Paul Stamets
Other things I’ve made with mushrooms
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I love fungi, and I love you!