“Mushrooms,” the magister announced, as the smell wafted up. “Kissed with garlic and bathed in butter. I am told the taste is exquisite. Have one, my friend. Have two.” -A Dance with Dragons
Black Mushrooms, take 2
Our Thoughts:
This dish proved to be more of an adventure than we anticipated.
We looked in several markets for black mushrooms, without success. Then, brilliance. I went to our local Asian supermarket, and cast about until I found an entire aisle filled with dried mushrooms. This, surely, was the perfect place to obtain suitably sketchy mushrooms. The winning bag reads, “Superior Quality Dried Fungus”, and beat out both the “AAA Dried Fungus” and the merely “High Quality Dried Fungus”.
Having obtained my dubious black mushrooms, I returned home to experiment.
They were horrible. I tried to prepare them many different ways, only to be met with the incontrovertable fact that the texture is simply unbearable. The butter and garlic just slipped right off the rubbery mushrooms, leaving us with a wholly unappetizing dish.
The second take is what you see above, and is wholly delicious. They might not have the same dubious backstory to go with them, but the trade off for great flavor is well worth it. Plump mushrooms bursting with butter and garlic- does it get better?
Superior Quality Fungus (not really…)
Ingredients:
- one handful of dried black mushrooms
- 3 Tbs. butter
- 1 clove garlic, sliced thin
Garlic Butter Roasted Mushrooms
Ingredients:
- 1 pound mushrooms such as cremini or white, halved lengthwise if large
- 2 tablespoons capers, rinsed and chopped
- 3 large garlic cloves, minced
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into pieces
Preheat oven to 450°F with rack in middle. Toss mushrooms with capers, garlic, oil, 1/8 teaspoon salt and several grinds of pepper in a 1 1/2- to 2-qt shallow baking dish. Top with butter and roast, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are tender and golden and bubbly garlic sauce forms below, 15 to 20 minutes. Serve immediately, with crusty bread on the side for swiping up the juices.
I make something like your roasted mushroom recipe, no capers, a generous splash of white wine (toasted head is my favorite for this) before they go in the oven. After they’re out of the oven I add a squeeze of lemon juice and a handful of chopped parsley. It’s really good over pasta too, if you’re with unreasonable people who can’t see mushrooms and bread as a dinner :)
Of course this is all fantasy for me, as I live in China now, and fresh herbs are difficult to find and most of the mushrooms seem a little dubious.
I’d be curious to see what mushrooms you got from the Chinese market. Your description makes me wonder if you picked up a bag of dried Wood ear fungus?
After extensive googling, I think they were indeed wood ear fungi. I chose based on appearance and the excessive name on the bag… :)
Funnily enough the packaging doesn’t change here :), I’ve had that many times, it’s probably in everything. Aside from soup, and what it’s snuck into (i.e. everything) it’s also scrambled into eggs and a white version is used in a soup for Chinese New Year. The more I eat it the more I dislike it, it has almost no flavor, but it feels like chewing a rubber glove.
Asian veg of this nature tend to give away to subpar culinary experiences. Fresh is really the only way to go, and even then, they have to be good stuff.
Your ill-fated first attempt reminds me of what Nadia G of Bitchin’ Kitchen said about the Asian favorite of canned baby corn: “Tasteless… You suck, baby corn!”
I suspect the problem with your Superior Quality Fungus was the drying. Drying turns a perfectly delightful mushroom (like a shitake) into a unpleasant rubbery lump.
I doubt I would ever eat anything that was simply described as “Fungus”, I can see how those would be inedible.
Though isn’t the Italian word for mushroom “funghi?” :)
But I guess you eat mushrooms? They’re fungi too.
Packaging and mindset is everything, I suppose….
I’m not surprised at all that your experiment with the dried black asian mushrooms was a failure. Far east asian (i.e. chinese, japanese, korean) cooking does not incorporate butter at all, so these two items were diametrically opposed from the onset and would not make a good fusion. Dried asian mushrooms when cooked right are lovely, with a nice meaty texture and a deep earthy flavor.
South East asian cooking (i.e. indian, pakastani) uses a form of butter called ghee, and they actually incorporate it in a lot of their dishes. Indeed, if I’m not mistaken they have many variations on fried mushrooms and ghee (optional additional ingredients are garlic, onions, green peppers, curry…etc). I’ve had a indian dish of fried mushrooms, ghee, garlic, and onions that was just absolutely delicious.
If you’re willing to try again, I recommended that you do a variation of the indian dish. Alternatively, if you want to stick westernized cuisine for this, then I’d suggest going with morel mushrooms. Some morel mushrooms are black in color and would probably marry well with butter and garlic.
No probably about it. Morels are wonderful in with butter and garlic! Funny, it’s almost morel season here in Michigan and as I was reading these posts I was hoping to find some to try these ideas with, minus the capers……
Secretly, I don’t care for capers, but they got good reviews with the rest of the eaters in the house, so I put them in the recipe. ;)
I tried this just today, and the result was delicious!
I did it with fresh Portobello mushrooms and the taste and texture was great. I left in the capers and all, but I followed the first commenter advice and added a few chopped parsley leaves collected from the planter on my window.
I’ll do it again soon. I’m sure!
I do a Hobbit version……….whole white mushrooms sauteed with bacon and butter til steamy and tender.
I’d recommend trying this with hen-of-the-woods mushrooms–they’re often foraged, so you could at least pretend the origins might be dubious! (If you get them in an Asian grocery they’ll probably be called maitake mushrooms, but it’s the same thing.) As one might expect, they have a nice…well, woodsy flavor.
My personal preference for a recipe like this would be to use fresh mushrooms. Creminis are always a good place to start. But rehydrated mushrooms just aren’t going to act the same way. I’m not sure of the exact grocery store scene in your area, but there’s a Wegman’s west of your city – they always have awesome produce. Depending on the size of the Wegman’s, they would even carry many of the unusual ingredients you guys go through :)
Dried mushrooms are great when you are adding mushroom flavor to a dish – so you’re dicing them up and mixing them in with other things. That’s what I use them and the rehydration liquid for.
Shiitake mushrooms would have been a good choice for this – nice dark caps, meaty flavor, and since they are cultivated they are available fresh all year round.
Mmmm.. Garlic + Mushrooms = Fabulous! This recipe looks fantastic!
For the wood ear fungi – like Anne said, it’s not made for cooking butter. In fact, it’s best in soup, such as hot & sour soup or egg drop soup. If you get it dried it needs to be soaked for 15 min or so to regain it’s bouncy-chewiness, but if you get it fresh and heat it up in boiling water it’s amazing. It doesn’t really have a flavor, but it absorbs the flavor and gives texture to soup and. I’m Chinese by descent and I really love wood ear fungi with my Chinese soups and occasionally my stirfry, but I would never ever cook it with butter. Either boil it in regular water or stirfry with vegetable oil. Also, the chewiness (maybe rubbery?) is probably a turn-off to people who haven’t grown up eating it…
Vadigor – mushrooms *ARE* fungus/fungi. So… whenever you eat mushrooms you’re eating the reproductive parts of fungi of the species that are edible to humans.
It’s not surprising it didn’t work with the wood ear mushrooms you found. Like others have said, it doesn’t go well with butter, and there is absolutely no interest in eating them alone. Because of their bland taste and their peculiar texture they are essentially used to bring more crunchiness to a dish. Simply cut into thin strips and mix with the other ingredients, either during or after cooking.
Dry and fresh mushrooms (fungi that is) of one species are two completely different products: dry mushrooms have more intense woody flavor to them, they also have darker pigment. For example, bolete mushrooms (porcini being one of the best varieties) are fleshy and light inside when fresh, the cap is sometimes very dark chocolate color if they grow in a pine forest . They become very dark when dried and acquire a specific aroma. You would never tell it’s the same mushroom, if you didn’t know. Dry mushrooms are never used for baking or roasting, they are for liquid preparations like soups and sauces.
For this post’s dish I would use bigger portobello, quartered: they are meaty enough not to be dried out by roasting , are dark in color and quite flavorful.
I make mushrooms like this ALL the time (because seriously, they go with everything – steak, fish, chicken, pork – doesn’t matter), but have never thought to include capers.. now I have something new to try!
Pity your questionable mushrooms weren’t a success. I really do wish there were a better selection available commercially. The grocery stores around here are generally limited to plain white and baby bella. :(
I just tried these and I think I may need to go out and buy more mushrooms and make more :D These are soooo good!
I just made these at the same time and in the same oven as the peas pie. used the bacon fat from the peas instead of the vegtable oil with predicably good results.
Thanks for the ideas
…. Sounds like you’re talking about the black fungus, eh? Well, I guess taste differs for many people, but I myself don’t really mind the rubbery texture. The point is to be rubbery, actually, and trying to combine this texture with butter would undoubtedly result in a slippery rubbery feel. I often use this fungus in small strips when stirfrying, or when I want a great texture to soups (as someone said above, hot and sour soup is GREAT for this). I’d imagine you might have better luck with shiitake, or (pardon me, I really do buy random mushrooms at random times and it’s really hard with my nonexistant knowledge of Chinese to guess what they are) there’s a fresh mushroom you sometimes see in Asian markets which resembles an orange foot. You’ll know it when you see it.
To be frank, I’m torn between being mortified at what you did to the mushroom and having a good laugh about it all. But I salute you nonetheless for going in territory that you’ve never seen before.
I have done something similar for Chicken of the Woods and morels, and they’re both amazing. Chicken of the Woods tastes JUST like chicken with a hint of nuts; it’s actually quite uncanny and makes me wonder which came first, the chicken or the fungus. For this particular application, I’d use morels if you can find them. They often turn almost black and their honeycombed texture just looks slightly sinister. They’re also ridiculously good, and this comes from someone who hates that “fungusy” aftertaste of most mushrooms. I used to find them all over Indiana and Ohio, and I even found one in Montana, so they’re out there, just takes quite a bit of foraging. You can occasionally find them in stores when they’re in season, but they are quite expensive.
Sariann and Chelsea: Did you find those black mushrooms at Super 88 in Allston? I looked but didn’t find them!
I did! They have a whole section of dried mushrooms, which, despite taking up half an aisle, is strangely difficult to find.
My friend made these and served them with bread–soooo delicious! I’ll be baking up my own batch soon enough.
I made this and loved it! Even my husband ate some! I did put the capers, garlic, and oil in a food chopper to get them finely chopped. Served it over basmati rice and with grilled ribeyes. I just heated some at work and people came sniffing and asking for the recipe. Can’t wait to make the sister’s stew.
I make something similar using fresh morels; I never really thought of them as Magister Illyrio’s Dubious Mushrooms until I saw this recipe, but they’re perfect. Their honeycomb texture looks pretty creepy and it soaks up the sauce wonderfully. They also dry pretty well, so you could try it when morels aren’t in season. I want to try it with Chicken of the Woods next.
If you’re using dried mushrooms, rehydrate them first, otherwise they are too rubbery. Let them soak for about an hour in some very lightly salted water, and most of them are just like fresh again.
few grasp the useage of dried mushrooms turly. mostly it is for chinese stock or use as spice . and i m quiet surprised u try it in Illyrio’s way. flesh black mushrooms is a different story , it will be great covered in garlic and butter . it contain a funny taste of wet wood as mushrooms taste dry wood. the choice is up to you
I used cremini mushrooms, omitted the capers and stuffed them in my honeyed chicken. And wow they were nummy
Oh, what a terrific idea! I will definitely have to try that!
Oh c’mon, if it’s black dubious mushrooms you want, you cannae get much more black or dubious than ‘Trompettes de la Mort’!!! Delicious too!!
Precisely what I was thinking! Yum.
I realise this is rather late in the day and I don’t want to come off as a negative nancy, because I love your site and even own the GoT cookbook. However, I suspect that this dish would be more accurately rendered with fresh black funghi, which are delicious and meaty. Availability is probably limited for many people, but for those in Australia, it’s possible to buy them at your run-of-the-mill Woolworths supermarket during much of the year: https://www.woolworths.com.au/Shop/ProductDetails/154977/mushrooms-black-fungi.
Working with dried mushrooms is tricky and not always consistent (although I wonder what kind of stock dried black mushrooms would create). If you have the opportunity to purchase them fresh, please, please do. Don’t be put off. They are delightful and have a beautiful umami flavour.
Also, I’m not sure about the decision to use vegetable oil in the modern rendition (although combining it with butter is a trick for making a kind of ghee replacement, a little bit sweeter and richer than either alone.) Black funghi are on the more delicate side, but assuming that one is using a more stock-standard mushroom, wouldn’t olive oil still be preferable? Cost is obviously a consideration for many, but given the quantity of oil being used, the way that mushrooms soak up fat, and the fact that the sauce is intended to be mopped up with bread, vegetable oil would leave an inferior flavour.
If anybody reading does substitute olive oil, I’d recommend a lighter sort, since it’s to form the base of the sauce and not just be used in frying, etc. It’s just my opinion, but it feels like the fat of choice should be something palatable enough for a dressing and also something doesn’t feel too sickly or unhealthy to finish of with your bread.
Hope these suggestions are helpful to someone! :)