English Peas, Spring Onions and Roasted Almonds

Just cooked English peas, sautéd spring onions and roasted, salted almonds are a delicious combination of tender sweet, sweet pungent, and crunchy just salty. You can set this side dish next to grilled fish or chicken or mashed potatoes and a roast. It's...

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Mushrooms Category Archive

Grilled Portobello Salad

Autumn into early winter is a great time to find fresh savory salad greens.

Arugula is still in the market now and mustard, mizuna, and cress are easily found from late autumn to early spring.

Cultivated mushrooms, such as the portobello, are easy to find year round, but their peak natural season is fall and winter.

So here is a very seasonal portobello and savory green salad. This salad matches grilled portobellos with winter greens, your favorite vinaigrette dressing and a light sprinkling of goat cheese.

This is a great recipe to keep in reserve should you find yourself a bit long on grilled portobellos one day.

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Oven Grilled Portobello Mushrooms

The portobello mushroom is a large brown mushroom. It’s immature self—a small brown mushroom—is called a crimini mushroom and sometimes baby bella.

In France, the portobello is called champignon de Paris. Champignon is the French word for fungus.

In the wild the common brown mushroom can have a cap that grows 2 to 4 inches wide. Cultivated portobellos can have caps twice that size or more since they are encouraged to mature. The portobello is a thick, meaty mushroom with a broad open cap and a woodsy aroma. You can make a meal of the portobello served alone.

You can throw the portobello on the outdoor grill during the summer and serve it just like a hamburger. The portobello can also be fried or oven roasted.

Here is a rich, buttery recipe for oven grilled Portobello. Garnish these with minced fresh parsley or chervil leaves.

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Oyster Mushroom Sautéed in Garlic

The oyster mushroom gets its name from its cap which, some say, resembles an oyster. The stem of the oyster mushrooms is perhaps more distinct; it unfurls something like one of those old-time paper lady’s fans.

The oyster mushroom has been cultivated in Asia for centuries. Today it is very popular in Japanese and Chinese cooking; it is usually stuffed or stir-fried.

The flavor of the oyster mushroom is somewhere between anise and oyster. The flavor mellows with cooking. Young oyster mushrooms, say 1½ inches in diameter or less, are considered the best eating.

Here is a delicious preparation for sautéed oyster mushrooms that takes less than 5 minutes including preparation time. You will find this a mild but flavorful meal or side dish. If you can't find oyster mushrooms, choose another medium cap mushroom.

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Cultivated Mushroom Varieties

When it comes to cookery, the term mushroom refers generally to cultivated mushrooms.

Almost all of the mushrooms that you will take home from the market for use in the kitchen have been cultivated indoors under controlled conditions. The mushroom is a fungus and to keep the strain pure, mushroom growers work hard to keep all other fungi and bacteria out of the growing area.

The common white button mushroom has been in cultivation for hundreds of years. The first cultivated mushrooms were grown by the ancient Greeks and Romans. The commercial cultivation of mushrooms began in France during the rule of King Louis XIV in the seventeenth century.

Talk to your local mushroom grower to get the pedigree of mushroom varieties you are interested in. You will probably be able to find locally grown shiitake mushrooms that in years past grew only on logs in Japanese forests and truffles that once grew only under the roots of young oak trees in France.

There are more than 35,000 varieties of mushrooms, but only a few hundred of those are in general cultivation. Here are some of the best known culinary mushrooms with their botanical names in parentheses:

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Mushrooms

Mushrooms have a delicious woodsy flavor and are easy to prepare.

You can enjoy mushrooms alone or with other ingredients. Use mushrooms in appetizers, salads, dips, soups, sauces, omelets, stews, pizzas and pastas, or match them with meat, poultry, fish, and shellfish. Mushrooms can be sautéed, broiled, grilled, steamed, or stir-fried.

The best mushrooms are mushrooms eaten fresh before their flavor is lost.

There are more than 35,000 species of mushrooms. Most of them are not edible, and some of them are poisonous. Unless you are a mushroom expert, choose cultivated mushrooms. There are dozens of cultivated mushrooms to choose from with many different flavors and textures.

Simmer fresh mushrooms in red wine and tomatoes with parsley and serve as a main dish, or put a fat protobello mushroom on the grill and serve it just like a burger.

Stuff mushrooms caps with herbed breadcrumbs or chopped vegetables or risotto and broil them, or sauté mushrooms lightly with chopped shallots and parsley and a little thyme and serve them as a side dish.

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Cremini Mushrooms

Cremini mushrooms have flavor.

Creminis look just like the small all-white button mushrooms you see at the grocery store but a cremini is brown and has twice the flavor of a cultivated white mushroom. When cremini mushrooms fully mature they are called portobellos.

The peak season for mushrooms harvested in the wild is fall and winter when the weather is cool, damp and frosty, but almost all varieties of mushrooms are available year-round since they are mostly cultivated indoors.

The cremini mushroom stands about 2 inches (5 cm) tall and has a cap that is 1½ to 2 inches (2.5-5 cm) in diameter. The cremini’s cap is brown and its stem is a dusky brown. If you turn it over, the cap of the cremini will be closed.

When creminis mature their caps broaden to 4 to 6 inches (10-15 cm) across, and the caps open to expose deep-brown gills underneath. These are called portobellos.

Cremini mushrooms are the standard cultivated mushrooms in Italy and France (where they are referred to as champignons), and they were the only cultivated mushrooms in the United States until the 1920s when common white mushrooms were introduced and became popular. Because the cremini has fallen out of broad cultivation in the United States, its cost is about twice that of the common white mushroom.

While the common mushroom has a slightly musky flavor, the taste of the cremini is richer and much more earthy and nutty. That flavor intensifies as the cremini matures. The flesh of the cremini and portobello is dense and almost meaty.

Choose: Select plump, solid, firm and dry mushrooms. Avoid mushrooms that are shriveled or slippery. A fresh mushroom should smell earthy.

Serve: Creminis can be used in any recipe that calls for mushrooms. Small creminis with closed caps can be cooked whole, and they will hold their shape. They can also be served stuffed and baked. Creminis can be sliced raw onto salads. Creminis go well with beef, chicken, cream, fish and seafood, game, garlic, herbs, onions, pasta, pork, rice, and wine.

Mushrooms can be cooked in a small amount of fat over a low heat. Cook them long enough that the entire flavor is released and until the liquid has evaporated. Wipe mushrooms with a damp cloth—do not rinse them unless dirt is clinging—before cooking.

Store: Mushrooms will keep for up to a week if refrigerated after being placed in a paper bag.

Nutrition: Mushrooms are rich in potassium and a good source of riboflavin.

There is no clear explanation about where the cremini got its name. Some in Italy, say it means brown. The French reference to the cremini “champignon” comes from the word for Champagne, so perhaps the reference is to a Champagne cork which is shaped like a cremini. Cremini mushrooms (also called crimini) are often referred to as baby portobellos or baby bellas.

The botanical name for the cremini and portobello mushroom is Agaricus bisporus.

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