“It’s not the taste, it’s more of a texture thing.”
Maybe you’ve heard this or maybe you’re the one saying it, but it tends to be one of the major reasons people give when pleading their case on not liking mushrooms. Now, I’m not one to shame anyone on their food preferences, but I truly believe many of those who claim they don’t enjoy mushrooms just haven’t had them cooked properly.
High heat and patience is our mantra here that will lead us to the best texture possible in a sautéed shroom, but there are multiple steps to ensure your fungus gets a perfect golden brown sear and doesn’t turn to mush(rooms). Sorry.
Sautéed Oyster Mushroom
Step 1: Washing Mushrooms
Don’t. Mushrooms are like a sponge, and already have high moisture content, so adding more water will allow those mushrooms to absorb it and will inevitably add too much liquid to the pan, hindering the sauté. With that much liquid, the golden-brown crust will never form, and the mushrooms will essentially just boil. Any dry dirt can be quickly brushed away with a pastry brush or paper towels. If your mushrooms are particularly dirty, a quick dunk in cold water is fine, but you will want to let them dry completely. If you find that your mushrooms are wet or slimy, start to consider where you got them or how they are being stored, as this indicates the shrooms have started to spoil. Paper bags or towel lined Ziplock bags in the fridge will help keep the mushrooms fresh as long as possible.
Step 2: Cutting Mushrooms
As with many things, consistency is key. Making each piece of mushroom as similarly sized as possible is the best way to guarantee a consistent cook. They can be any size you wish, depending on the mushroom you picked or the dish they will end up in, but if one is bigger than the other, the time it takes to cook them will also be different. That could lead to one big wet piece when the smaller piece is done cooking.
Step 3: Turn Up the Heat
A mistake many home cooks make is shying away from higher heat. When sautéing mushrooms, you’ll want a heavy bottomed pan like a cast iron or Le Creuset with a high-temp neutral-flavored oil like grapeseed or vegetable oil, and your heat at medium-high to high temperatures. Treating the surfaces of these the same as you would with proteins like chicken or steak, because we are trying to achieve the same outcome, a golden brown and delicious crust. Do not overcrowd the pan. Stacking the mushrooms on top of each other will prevent the water from evaporating and leave you with one layer of caramelized mushrooms and more layers of mush(rooms). Sorry again.
Scalloped King Oyster Mushroom
Step 4: Wait. Seriously.
We’ve put the mushrooms on the heat and maybe pressed them down either with our hands or tongs to ensure they are flat onto the pan. Now comes the hard part. Wait. This is the patience part of our mantra. The mushrooms need time first to release a lot of their liquid and for it to evaporate and then to begin to sear. If you keep stirring and flipping them around, they will never get enough time to develop that crust and they’ll be, you guessed it, mushy. Working in waves if needed, I am not going to not recommend flipping each individual mushroom to ensure maximum searing, but for showpiece mushrooms like oysters and trumpets, it surely doesn’t hurt.
Step 5: Flavor!
You might have noticed no mention of seasoning the mushrooms until this point. That is by design, while typically we strongly recommend seasoning as you go to ensure proper seasoning and depth of flavor, with mushrooms it’s okay to wait. Salt draws out moisture, and if you’ve read anything before this, you know that moisture is the enemy here. Salting before or at the beginning stage of cooking will draw out more moisture than needed and hinder that searing process. Seasoning after you’ve accomplished that perfect sear will ensure your mushrooms won’t only look and feel delicious but taste delicious too.
A tale as old as time involves covering those perfectly seared mushrooms in butter, and I am a full supporter of this. More earthy and umami-full flavors like miso or balsamic do a great job to elevate and enhance the already deep flavors of the mushroom. The world is your mushroom and there are infinite possibilities to flavoring and designing a plate around a mushroom centerpiece is almost always a win in my book.
Miso Butter Furikake King Oyster Mushrooms
I do hope this small glimpse into the world of mushroom cookery will hopefully change some minds who might be on the fence on mushrooms or inspire the mushroom lovers to consider them as a main character and not just an ingredient. There is so much more to learn about these incredible fungi and how they can be a mainstay in the regular grocery order.
For the ultimate mushroom experience, The Chopping Block is hosting a special hands-on class The Magic of Mushrooms with Windy City Mushrooms in February. Join us on Tuesday, February 27 at 6pm.
