SEASONAL FOOD GUIDE

Storing Mushrooms

Fresh mushrooms don’t hold up nicely to garage, relying at the range. Most mushrooms do well stored within the crisper drawer — preferably, in a paper bag for air stream — for three to four days, tops. Dried mushrooms may be saved and sealed in a dry area for a 12 months or extra.

Cooking with Mushrooms

The splendid debate: Should you rinse your mushrooms, or not? While the general recommendation is to wipe mushrooms with a humid paper towel to keep away from water logging them, a few chefs, inclusive of the mythical Jacques Pépin, say it’s k to give them a quick rinse if it’s proper earlier than cooking.

Mushrooms can be cooked any way your heart dreams — fried, braised, roasted, grilled, steamed, sautéed or even raw. They are yummy tossed onto pizzas, sliced into salads, combined into risottos and sautéed as a side dish. Mushrooms are prized in such a lot of distinct cuisines across the globe, it’s smooth to comprise them into your cooking. Eastern Europe and Russia are regions well-known for his or her mushroom dishes, like this scrumptious-searching Russian mushroom-barley soup, and foraging is an vital part of the cultural background in those locations. A variety of mushrooms additionally play a massive element in Chinese delicacies, in dishes like braised mushrooms with broccoli or bok choy.

Italians additionally love their mushrooms; this mushroom gratinate from Lidia Bastianich is a traditional. Mushrooms also make an look in many, many traditional French dishes, like mushroom duxelles, used as a stuffing and a topping.

In standard, mushrooms pair brilliantly with dairy (mainly cheese and sour cream), meats of all kinds, eggs, clean herbs and greens. Dried mushrooms should be reconstituted before you use them. Overall, dried mushrooms have a miles more concentrated taste than sparkling and are super braised in liquid or added to combos like risotto. (And keep their soaking liquid to feature to your dish.)

Preserving Mushrooms

To maintain mushroom supplies you may strive laco-fermenting them, although apparently even fermentation guru Sandor Katz is a bit careful about mushroom fermentation. You can strive salting your mushrooms, like Hank Shaw does over at Hunger, Angler, Gardner, Cook. Another clean choice are mushroom pickles. To cook dinner with mushrooms later, freeze or oven-dry them.