Recipes

Cooking Mixed Mushrooms

Wild mushrooms have wildly different flavors. The same species can make a meal or ruin it. Likewise mixed mushrooms sautéed can delight one’s palate or confuse it, making the mushrooms taste off and unrecognizable even though the individual mushrooms are all tasty on their own. There are two  tricks to making mixed sautéed mushrooms delightful: Know all about the mushrooms you plan to use, then sautéthe mushrooms that you know will go well together separately yet in the same pan. I’ll explain how I do that shortly, but first a few words about which mushrooms go together and  how and which might not.

Mixed fall mushrooms

Things to consider are flavor, appearance, texture and cooking time. For this recipe I’ll use 1 cup each of 5 common mushrooms: maitake, oyster mushroom, knot hole mushroom, blewits and shaggymanes, chopped in bite-size chunks with each species kept separate in preparation. These mushrooms’ flavors range from rich: maitake and blewits, to medium: oyster and shaggymanes to light: knothole. Their commonality is compatibility with a traditional button mushroom like flavor. Their appearance is varied when cooked. Blewits dark gray purplish, oyster and maitake mixed light and brown, and knothole and shaggymanes remain almost white.  Firmest texture equals longest cooking time. Approximate cooking times for these five: Maitake – 11 – 14 min., knothole – 9 min., oyster 8-9 min., blewits 7 min., shaggymane 5 min. 

1/2 TBL fresh thyme is a good herb for all of these mushrooms, especially maitake

In a large sauté pan or skillet on medium heat, heat 1 TBL each of light olive oil and butter or all olive oil for vegan. Stir in thyme for several seconds; add maitake and cook for 3 to 5 minutes (longer if maitake is more mature) until mushrooms juice out if they’re moist, and turn fragrant. Move maitake around the edge of the pan; add knothole mushrooms, get them cooking for a minute and add oyster mushroom and (optional: add 1 tsp. each soy sauce and dry white wine). Cook 2 -3 minutes then move toward edge of pan with maitake.  Add a little more butter and/or olive oil to center of pan if it’s getting dry. Add blewits to pan center and cook a couple minutes until excess moisture in blewits mostly cooks off, mix with other mushrooms making some room in center for shaggymanes. Cook until juice comes out of shaggy manes and partially boils off. Mix all mushrooms up and cook a few more minutes making sure excess juice is cooked off. These mushrooms are ready to be served or frozen for a winter treat. They’ll have a rich overall flavor but also retain some of their individual flavors.

Stone soup

Put a large pot of water on to boil. Gather a bunch of hungry people. Have each one bring at least one ingredient to go into the soup. Work as a team to prepare the ingredients and throw them into the pot.
As the soup boils, sit around telling stories until the soup smells like it’s cooked enough.
Serve everyone.

Creamed Shaggy Manes on Toast

This is a super easy recipe that even a kid can make, and most kids will love. It highlights the mild flavor of these delicious shaggy mane mushrooms in a simple way that’s great for a first try. Another plus is that these are some of the most digestible mushrooms around.

Ingredients:

12 oz. fresh all white shaggy manes lightly cleaned and sliced in quarters or halves if  small.
1 Tbls butter and/or extra -light olive oil
White sauce
1/4 cup butter
¼ cup flour
¼ tsp salt
pepper to taste
pinch of paprika (optional)
2 cups milk 
Sliced Bread – Toast

Make the sauce: 

Melt butter over low heat; whisk in flour and salt; whisk in milk and stir til it thickens. 
Saute mushrooms over medium heat in butter and/or olive oil for a few minutes, only or until the liquid comes out of the mushrooms.
Add mushrooms to sauce and continue simmering over low heat until it has regained the desired thickness. Make toast. Pour some mushroom sauce over each slice of toast and eat. 

Monterey Fish Stew

Better Homes and Gardens Soups & Stews Cookbook (1978)

1 pound fresh or frozen firm, white fish (such as cod, haddock, or sole)
1 small onion, diced (1/3 cup)
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 cup water
1/3 cup dry vermouth
2 teaspoons instant chicken bouillon granules
¾ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon dried marjoram, crushed
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 bay leaf
2 potatoes, peeled and sliced (2 cups)
1 carrot, sliced (½ cup)
2 medium tomatoes, peeled and chopped (1 ½ cups) 
(in the winter, I have used canned, diced tomatoes, drained) (more often than fresh)
5 or 6 fresh mushrooms, quartered 
(Bing’s favorite for this recipe: 1 cup precooked honey mushrooms Armillaria mellea)
2 tablespoons snipped fresh parsley
¼ cup cold water
2 tablespoons cornstarch

Thaw fish, if frozen; cut fish into bite-sized pieces. In 3-quart saucepan cook onion and garlic in butter or margarine till tender but not brown. Stir in the 1 cup water, the vermouth, bouillon granules, salt, marjoram, pepper, and bay leaf. Add potatoes and carrot; bring to boiling. Reduce heat; cover and simmer about 20 minutes or till vegetables are just tender. Add fish, tomatoes, mushrooms, and parsley. Cover and simmer about 5 minutes or till fish flakes easily with a fork.

            Remove fish and vegetables; set aside. Blend the ¼ cup cold water and cornstarch; stir into pan. Cook and stir till thickened and bubbly. Return fish and vegetables to sauce; heat through. Serves. 4.

In my opinion, this is not a soup one would make ahead and use the crockpot (although it’s never stopped us from eating leftovers).I have never removed the fish and vegetables, as in the last paragraph of directions. Too much to remove, just stir in the blended water and cornstarch.

Hamburger High Hat

I don’t know where Mom got this recipe. It probably was one she clipped from a magazine. I only remember that when I would walk into the house and smell the rich aroma of ground beef, onion, and bacon, I knew that I was going to be a happy boy at supper.

1/2 pound bacon — diced
1 pound lean ground beef
1 cup diced onion
1 cup (One Can) cream of chicken soup (do not add water)
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
1/2 teaspoon monosodium glutamate – Note from Dave: I wonder how much the MSG contributed to Charlie’s happiness?
1/8 teaspoon garlic salt
1 cup dairy sour cream
Hot buttered egg noodles
poppy seed.

Saute bacon over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add hamburger and onion to bacon. Cook slowly until onion is golden and hamburger is browned–about 15 minutes. Keep the hamburger crumbly. Pour off excess fat. Add soup and seasonings. Heat till bubbly. Just before serving, add sour cream Heat to simmer. Add poppy seeds to the hot buttered egg noodles, and plate by putting noodles on plate and ladling some of the meat mixture over.

Now, you may be wondering where the mushrooms are. First of all, in the ’60’s, my mother probably couldn’t even buy fresh mushrooms, and wouldn’t have even if she could. BUT, you can certainly exchange Cream of Mushroom soup for the Cream of Chicken. And I’m sure that adding fresh mushrooms to the meat mixture while it is browning would be a great improvement. This is the ultimate in comfort food.

Turkey/Grifola Meatloaf

Dave Layton

Ingredients

Onion/Grifola mixture
3 cups yellow onions chopped
2 tablespoons light olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground black pepper (fresh ground is best)
1 ½ teaspoon fresh or 3/4 teaspoon dried thyme leaves (divided)
Grifola (Hen of the Woods or maitaki)— ¾ – 1 cup cooked or reconstituted if dried Grifola used.
(Approximately ½ lb. raw makes 1 cup cooked about 1 ½ oz. dried for 1 cup reconstituted), 
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup chicken or vegetable stock
1Tablespoon tomato paste
5 pounds ground turkey breast
1 1/2 cups plain dry bread crumbs
3 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup ketchup

Directions: Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. 

Step One: Grifola preparation:

Raw or raw frozen:  chop raw or break raw frozen into small pieces. In a medium sauté pan, sauté on medium using ½ the oil with ½ the thyme until juices run out and mostly evaporate. Lower heat a little and continue with overall preparation

Dried:  reconstitute by soaking 1 ½ oz. dried Grifola (Maitake at grocers) In 1.5 cups pure hot water for 25+ minutes. Remove mushrooms from liquid (saving some liquid to mix with broth if desired) chop finely and continue with overall preparation

Frozen Precooked:

Break 1 cup frozen into preheated very hot pan stir and flip frequently until mushrooms thawed remove from pan, lower heat and chop mushrooms smaller on a cutting board. And continue with overall preparation. Note: we usually cook our mushrooms to freeze with some thyme and take that into consideration when deciding how much thyme overall to use.

Overall preparation:

Over medium low heat combine prepared Grifola, onions, olive oil (remaining or all), salt, pepper, and thyme until translucent, but not browned, approximately 15minutes.

Add the Worcestershire sauce, chicken mushroom stock, and tomato paste and mix well. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Combine the ground turkey, bread crumbs, eggs, and onion

mixture in a large bowl. Mix well. Divide into lightly sprayed pans of number and size of your choosing. Makes 3 medium size loafs. Spread the ketchup evenly on top.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours until the internal temperature is 160 degrees F. and the meatloaf is cooked through. 

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Stir Fried Veggies with Tree Ears

Dave Layton

Ingredients:

1 – 2 cups fresh wild tree ear = ½ cup dried remove tough base where mushroom connects to tree then cut into long narrow strips. If dried, soak in hot water until expanded and soft then prepare as  above. Tree ear dries easily it  can be bought at the store or possibly found dried on a tree even in winter. Tree dried tree ears only work if they emerged in dry weather to begin with and weren’t rained on much since drying. If it has earlike ridges, flexible shape and a nice solid color (not faded with spots etc.) when it’s reconstituted you found a good dried tree ear.

1 bundle glass noodles about 2 oz.
 2  cloves garlic
1 inch of ginger root – peeled and thin sliced
 optional 1/2 cup rutabaga sliced to ¼  thick by 1 “ long slices
1 – 2 cups: green leaf or Napa cabbage  – same amount of cabbage as mushrooms
1 cup carrots sliced to ¼ by 1 “ slices, 
½ cup celery chopped, 
½ cup green onion ¼ inch slices of green onion, 
Optional ½ cup thin sliced summer squash, pod peas optional green peppers
Optional: 1 tablespoon of diced red chili peppers or ¼ teaspoon chili pepper flakes if spicy heat desired
1 cup precooked chicken, pork or tofu
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

Sauce:

 ¼ cup soy sauce
1 tablespoon brown sugar or 2 tsp. Hoisin sauce and 1 tsp brown sugar
2 tablespoon Madeira or dry red wine add a little more brown sugar or hoisin sauce if dry wine used rather than Madeira
1 teaspoon sesame oil
¼ cup water (can be left over water from reconstituting wood ear)

Make sauce mixture – Dissolve brown sugar in soy sauce, (Hoisin Sauce), wine, sesame oil  and  water set to side.

Heat vegetable oil on medium high add garlic, ginger and rutebega if desired. Sizzle until fragrant 2 – 3 minutes. Reduce heat and begin soaking noodles in hot water. add 1/2 of sauce mixture carrots, celery white base of onions, cabbage and red chili if desired cook 3- 4 more minutes covered. Add remaining sauce mixture and tree ears cook covered 5 minutes.  Drain noodles and chop into 2” sections . Add noodles, meat or tofu, snow peas and/or green peppers and simmer 5 more minutes or until noodles soft. Note if liquid gone from pan before adding noodles add ¼ cup liquid half water/ half soy sauce 

Serve with rice if desired.

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6 to 6-1/2 cups all-purpose flour.  {Chuck:  If you use part bread flour, the bread is nice and compact and a little chewy.  Some of you who are adventurous might try substituting not more than 1 or 2 cups of other flours, such as whole wheat or rye.  I don’t guarantee the result, but, hey, that’s the fun of bread-baking! If you make any substitutions, sift or thoroughly mix the different flours together before adding to the recipe.}

Add the lukewarm milk mixture to dissolved yeast.  Stir in 3 cups of flour and beat 1 minute, then stir or work in 3 more cups flour.  Toss the dough onto a floured board and knead until it is smooth, elastic, and full of bubbles, gradually adding more flour until the dough no longer sticks to your hands.  {I make this dough in a heavy-duty mixer with a dough hook, and so I add as little extra flour as possible, keeping the dough fairly supple.}  Place the dough in a greased bowl, turn the dough over once, and cover with a cloth.  {I use oil in the bowl, and I wet the cloth and wring it out damp.}

Let rise in a warm place (75 to 85 deg. F) until doubled in bulk, at least 1 hour.  Punch down the dough and, if time permits, allow it to rise until doubled once more, otherwise skip the second bowl rising.  Divide the dough in half, shape into 2 loaves, and place in greased 9 x 5 inch loaf pans. {I grease the pans with non-stick spray.}  Cover with a clean cloth and let rise again until almost doubled in bulk.  {I again use the damp dish towel, and I tent it over the two  pans by putting a tall bottle of some sort between the pans.  I do this to keep the towel off of the rising dough.}  Pre-heat the oven to 450 deg. F.  Bake the bread 10 minutes.  Reduce the heat to 350 deg. F and bake about 30 minutes longer.  Bake until the crust is golden brown and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped.  {Of course you must remove the loaf from the pan to do this tapping.}  Remove the loaves at once from the pans and cool completely on a rack.

{Chuck:  Here’s the wonder!  If you were to make this recipe without yeast, it would create a wonderful pair of bricks for  building a house.  Of course, you could forget about the rising of the dough and move directly to shaping the bricks and baking them.  The great wonder is that there are thousands of different recipes for yeast bread, and they are mostly all wonderful to eat.  This recipe from The Joy of Cooking is actually a fairly involved recipe–and I don’t just mean the detailed “method.”  A person can make bread with flour, water and yeast.  In just the same way that yeast gladdens our hearts with wine and beer, so it gladdens our tongues and stomachs with bread.}

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Hobo’s Delight

I always knew milkweed was edible but I never thought much of it after tasting it raw in the distant past. I now know that its flower buds are more than edible. Maybe they’re even wonderful in grilled veggie packets or fried.

Sally and I are slow to use Golden Oyster mushrooms in many meals because their strong sweetish flavor isn’t often appropriate for many dishes. They’re more than appropriate with milkweed flower buds however. They’re delicious! In Hobo’s Delight they gain a meaty flavor that’s exceptional for an all-vegetable dish.

So why the name Hobo’s Delight?

The first time I tried pairing the two ingredients I used up my own milkweed flowers. Plus Golden Oysters were the only fungi fruiting during a bone dry June.  I had to forage for Milkweed for my 2^nd meal. I found it abundant in the marginal environments near rail yards.  Also scrub woods with dead trees produced abundant and easily spotted golden oysters nearby.  A savvy hobo could easily become the most popular person in the camp with this meal and it could come with plenty of aperitifs and digestifs! Hence the name Hobo’s Delight.

Hobo’s Delight

Ingredients

3 cups milkweed flowers mostly buds but some open okay; chopped bite size

   (Sally says no thanks to open; they have a very strong, albeit wonderful, scent)

2 cups golden oysters chopped bite size

1Tbls garlic scapes or garlic cloves – Hobos may substitute ramps (a lucky find) or garlic mustard (always available but not so good)

2 -3 Tbls chives and/or green or other onion – less onions if sharper onion flavor; more if milder – feel free to experiment with different onion flavors in similar proportions.  Hobos may substitute wild onions, but beware of their stinky flowers. Get to much of that smell on you and no one will come near enough to you to even hand you a flask.

1.5 Tbls Chianti or semi dry cheap red wine – for hobos any cheap wine will do. Make sure to test what other vagrants have to offer before making a decision

1 Tbls light olive oil & 1.5 butter or 2.5 Tbls oil of choice for vegans; for hobos: the least rancid oil or butter available.

1.5 Tbls soy sauce

Procedure

Heat 2 Tablespoons oil or oil and butter in a large skillet; add garlic for 20 seconds, then onions until fragrant.

Add milkweed flower buds; stir in wine, and cover.  Cook for 3-4 minutes covered.

Uncover and move milkweed to the pan’s edges and add a little more oil and butter in the middle. Add mushrooms and stir soy sauce into mushrooms.

Mix milkweed and mushrooms all together and continue cooking for 4-5 more minutes.

Serves:  4 – 16 guests

Note: This recipe is for sophisticated hobos. However, for regular bums, a simple effective version is to wrap ingredients in aluminum foil packets along with any other vegetables or meat on hand – even tender young grape leaves, which are abundant in June, would be good. Cook on coals at the edge of the campfire 15 – 20 minutes, turning over every few minutes.  It’ll still be a big hit at the campsite, qualifying the chef to celebrate with other folks’ booze both before cooking and after serving. (Sally’s note: This version was even more delicious!)