Mushroom – The Representative Cuisine of the Fall: Imported Mushrooms

Thursday, 10/26/2017 10:51

Mushroom is the real “safe and organic” food.

After rainy season – anywhere from tropical to temperate zones, all humid forests have celebrated plenty of new lives. Fruits are getting ripe on branches and underneath layers of decayed leaves, another dynamic world are waking up. Around the trees, mushroom of all kinds have opened their eyes after a long nap.

Mushroom is the real “safe and organic” food. It’s no need to worry whether those mushroom in your kitchens is over fertilized or preserved by harmful chemical because mushroom themselves can’t absorb inorganic substances. As a heterotrophic organism, mushroom is able to live in symbiosis (or synchronicity) only; fungus secretes its own enzymes to transform surrounding area into organically absorbed carbon. Therefore, just some of chemical fertilizer or irritant or too much chlorine in water can give bad effects on the mushroom; they would turn pale or even perish right away.

Being so diverse in types, flavors, and colors, mushroom should be considered as super food of the fall because of its frugal taste yet nutritious contents. When the weather gets cooler and the winds pull some of annoying mist away, special mushroom then appears. A little different from summer fungus or so called after-rain mushroom as black fungus, oyster mushroom, or straw mushroom, the fall’s requires cooler yet less humid to develop from spores, which have been quietly growing a year ago.

Fall mushroom is quite pickier and their value is also higher; therefore, they could seize more important positions on dinning tables. There are some must-talk-about mushroom of the fall:

Matsutake or Japanese pine mushroom

Statistically, Japan has over 5000 types of mushroom and fungus, in which 70 types are edible. Despite the extremely high standards of the Japan, matsutake mushroom stolidly stands at the top of the golden list because of its feature flavor. Matsutake mushroom is highly valuable since they’re so rare and are not able to be farm raised. The only way to collect them is to protect pine forests then to wait until the fall comes.

The habitat of matsutake mushroom is in red pine forests, where spores cling to shallow pines’ root and lay under the thick foliage for a year. The best depth for them to grow is about 10cm under the ground so this luxurious mushroom is usually found in mountainous areas, where pine trees are not well grown. On the other hand, on thick soil where pine forests prefer the most is not the place for Matsutake. Recently, Matsutake mushroom has been getting extremely rare but it does not mean hunters would pick whatever they’ve found. Only 4cm height and up mushroom is collected because that’s when they are totally mature, flavorful and incredibly buttery.

Fresh harvested Masutake mushroom.

Matsutake mushroom’s appearance is absolutely normal, even too normal to catch anyone’ eyes but they’re actually so rare and valuable that only royal class had had a chance to taste. Their stalks are thick and buttery while their caps are tender yet chewy. Besides fiber, Matsutake mushroom also contains multivitamins as B1, B2, C, and PP, which have huge effects for body health strengthening, blood sugar reducing, blood pressure stabilizing, and sedative affecting.

Truffle – the world’s most expensive mushroom

If Matsutake is the representative of Japanese and Asian mushroom world with the average shelf price at $2000 per kilogram, the world’s most expensive mushroom is seized by truffle, a well-known European type sold from thousands to hundred thousand dollars per kilogram. There are over a hundred types of truffle mushroom all over the planet, which are found in the Europe, Asia, North Africa, and North America but only 2 types have made their values on the market: black truffle (usually from Périgord of France) and white truffle (usually from Piedmont of Italia).

Once again, truffle cannot be raised and they even cannot grow onto the ground. They widely develop in the mold under foliage trees as oaks, pines, or hazelnuts. Truffle hunters couldn’t find the mushroom themselves but they have to have pigs or dogs to smell them out.

Wild truffle mushroom.

The truffle mushroom costs that extremely high price in culinary world not because of its taste but its aroma. Truffle’s shape is just like a bumpy… truffle but it emanates an amazing scent. Just a couple slices of white truffle can bring the dish to totally different luxurious level.

White truffle mushroom has a sweet, warm, and really strong scent (some people think it’s like garlic smell) but it’s easy to fade away so that we never cook white truffle. The popular process is to thinly slice or to mince a piece of white truffle then garnish them on ready-to-serve dishes. Some luxurious restaurants love to use white truffle in their appetizers or brunch, especially the famous scrambled eggs. Cooks usually scramble the eggs, fry and place them on fancy dishes then sprinkle minced white truffle over. Another way is to flavor ingredients by this highly sought-after mushroom. People put their raw or prepared ingredients in a sealed box with white truffle from hours to days so that the ingredients will absorb as much forestry and autumn flavor as they can. Some well-known fancy dishes usually applied are salted or unsalted butter, rice (Italian risotto), olive oil, or even wheat flour.

Scrambled eggs with truffle.

Black truffle mushroom also carries a feature scent. Although its density is not as much as white mushrooms’, the scent can be kept longer. Therefore, black truffle often appears on the dish or they are cooked in broth and sauces. We might mince black truffle and mix with spaghetti, mix them with meat stuff, or spread them under turkey’s skin to enhance final scents of dishes. We might also stew black truffle mushroom in sauces for seafood or white meat (pork or chicken). Having black truffle is also to have its incredible scent and its texture is just tender yet chewy as an overcooked scallop. Sometimes cooks place a slice of black truffle with seafood so diners may enjoy both the umami seafood and heavenly scent of truffle mushroom.