Grower's Guide - September - written by Chef Consultant, Celia Brooks
Wild About Mushrooms
Mushrooms are not technically a vegetable or a fruit, or even a plant! They are a unique and mysterious life form classed in solitary splendour as fungi. It’s a bit of a macabre thought, but imagine how many of our ancestors died an agonising death eating poisonous fungi before the wisdom to identify the delicious edible ones was established. We’re not talking a little tummy ache here, but a seriously gruesome end, and yet, their peers and offspring persisted in eating them. Springing up from nowhere overnight in fields before any other wild fruit was ripe, or emerging from the forest floor and blooming out of rotting logs as autumn set in and food was getting scarce, mushrooms must have been a welcome and essential source of nourishment for our hunter gatherer descendants between feasting on animals. But they learned to be wary.
It’s a shame that so few people still possess wild mushroom wisdom. Informed foraging is a dying art, one that hasn’t really ever existed in the UK, unlike most of Europe. In France, pharmacists are trained to identify edible mushrooms, so you can take your foraged mushrooms to any pharmacy to confirm whether or not they’re edible.
In Wales once, on a camping trip, I found what I am certain was a ginormous cep, the biggest one I have ever seen – the thick cap was the size of my face, the fat stem as wide as my forearm. Sadly I was too afraid to cook and eat it, and without a handbook or the internet or anybody knowledgeable to consult at the time, I gazed upon it as an ornament for too long, and within a few days, my Guinness Book of World Records-worthy cep went to waste. I regret it to this day.
Favourite proper wild mushrooms include ceps (porcini), St George, chanterelles, girolles, and morels. Chicken-of-the-woods is an extraordinary, huge apricot-coloured fungus that grows on trees in spring through early autumn. It has a very dense texture and really does mimic chicken when sliced and fried.
Exotic mushrooms are often thought to be wild, but they are cultivated. These include oyster (delicate flavour and texture), king oyster (meaty and firm – great for grilling in slices, especially the trunk-like stem), shiitake and shimeji (both bursting with umami flavour but not so juicy), and enoki (pretty, elfin white mushrooms with long stems, but very little flavour).
When preparing mushrooms, any tough stems should be snapped or pulled off, especially from shiitake mushrooms. Unless you are using wild mushrooms that are obviously caked in dirt, do not wash mushrooms, because they act like sponges and absorb the water, making them soggy. Use a damp paper towel to gently wipe the caps if necessary. If you want chunky pieces rather than sliced or finely chopped, it is sometimes easier to just tear them into pieces rather than trying to manage them wobbling around on a chopping board.
Foraged wild mushrooms are expensive and a true delicacy. I usually don’t fuss with them too much in the cooking. Simply sauté in butter with a pinch of salt and plenty of freshly ground black pepper until soft. Sometimes I’ll push the boat out and add a splash of Madeira wine at the end and some fresh thyme leaves. Once the wine is reduced, I’ll melt a few generous spoonfuls of mascarpone cheese into the pan and let it coat everything with sweet creaminess. Pure indulgence.
Edible wild mushrooms have unique beneficial nutrients that are as potent as the poison in their cousins. All mushrooms contain powerful phytochemicals which stimulate the immune system, fight cancer, and inhibit blood clots. Basically, eating a lot of mushrooms is likely to prolong your life, so get in.
Thai Mushroom & Cashew Larb
From SuperVeg by Celia Brooks
“Larb” is a phonetic spelling for the Thai name of a light but filling main-course salad of spiced minced chicken or pork with herbs, often served in lettuce leaves. Here, ordinary chopped mushrooms and cashew nuts are cooked together to create a nutritious mock-meat mince infused with the knockout flavours of lemongrass, ginger and chilli. The result is to die for! Cucumber goes really well alongside this too.
Serves 4 as a light main, 8 as a side / Prep 20 mins / Cook 30 mins
Ingredients
500g mushrooms - ideally chestnut or a mixture of exotic varieties
1 tablespoon coconut oil or olive oil
sea salt to taste
100g raw cashew nuts
2 stalks lemon grass, sliced
4 garlic cloves, halved
1 shallot, roughly chopped
2cm / 1 inch piece ginger, peeled and roughly chopped
2 small red chillies, snipped
1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
3 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons lime juice
8 little gem lettuce leaves or 4 Chinese leaf / Napa cabbage leaves
handful of fresh mint leaves
cucumber slices to garnish
Special equipment: food processor
Method
1) Place the mushrooms in a food processor and pulse until chopped finely, but not ground to a puree – think pinky nail size pieces.
2) Heat a wide frying pan or wok over a medium-high heat and add the oil. Add the mushrooms and a sprinkling of salt and stir well.
3) While the mushrooms start to cook, add the cashews to the food processor and process until finely chopped, but not ground to a powder. Add to the mushrooms.
4) Cook for about 20-30 minutes, stirring frequently, until the liquid has evaporated and you have a loose, slightly dry mixture that is turning golden.
5) Meanwhile, wipe out the food processor and add the lemongrass, garlic, shallot, ginger and chillies. Whizz until ground as finely as possible.
6) Clear a space in the middle of the pan and add the sesame oil, then scrape the lemongrass mixture into the oil and stir it through, then stir everything together in the pan and fry for 2 minutes and enjoy the fragrance. Add the soy sauce and cook for 3 minutes more, stirring frequently.
7) Take the pan off the heat and add the lime juice. Mix thoroughly and set aside. Taste for seasoning.
8) Arrange lettuce or Chinese leaves on 4 plates, adding a few cucumber slices on the side. Spoon the mushroom mixture onto each leaf. Chop the mint and scatter over the plates, and serve right away. Eat with your hands.
