If the word "mushroom" conjures for you white buttons in little supermarket tubs, you're not alone. But there is a big world of mushrooms out there, and you don't have to be a forager to live in it. Wild mushrooms can be found in spring, summer and fall, but farmed mushrooms, grown mostly in the dark, are always around and a little easier to find than the ones hiding in the woods. So are dried mushrooms, which may be domesticated or truly wild and which are among the most flavorful ingredients you can keep in your pantry.
In recent years, the availability of mushroom varieties, particularly shiitake, has exploded. And the ease with which you can buy dried mushrooms — not just porcini but morels, lobster mushrooms and another dozen even-more-exotic (and -expensive) types — is a revelation. You don't need a lot; I might go through a pound or so of dried mushrooms in the course of a year, and I use them regularly. (The sources I generally rely upon for dried mushrooms are marxfoods.com and earthy.com.)
I'm not suggesting you abandon fresh. Even though the only fresh mushroom you can buy that remotely rivals dried wild mushrooms in flavor is the shiitake (it's tough to taste a difference among portobellos, creminis, oysters and button mushrooms with your eyes closed), fresh mushrooms offer a texture and "brownability" that you cannot really duplicate with dried. Hence the technique — I learned it from Marcella Hazan's early cookbooks — of combining fresh and dried mushrooms in the same dish, capturing the best qualities of both.
Dried mushrooms are far from all the same — you could distinguish among them in a snap, not only by taste but also by texture. But unless you're wedded to a particular kind (or stock only one type), they're pretty much interchangeable. They're all good: shiitakes (sold cheap in most Chinese markets as "black" mushrooms) have an astonishingly meaty texture and are superb in stir-fries; morels possess a smoky, woodland flavor and unique mouth feel; porcini, which to me (and this is a matter of taste) are the must-haves; and lobster mushrooms, so-called for their bright, reddish orange color. There are others, varying in shape, texture, color and flavor, and I've never met one I didn't like.
All are usually soaked before using. (If you're cooking in liquid, you can sometimes skip this step with thin-sliced porcinis.) This usually requires just a few minutes, though whole black (shiitake) mushrooms can take up to a half-hour and should be soaked in just-boiled water. That soaking liquid contains a lot of flavor and should never be wasted; combining it, for example, with chicken stock in mushroom soup yields explosive flavor.
Especially in that soup and the pasta with funghi trifolati, I like a combination: button or shiitake for the fresh, and porcini, morel and maybe even lobster for the dried. Try that, and the resulting assortment of sensations may keep you from ever thinking of mushrooms the same way again.
Anda sedang membaca artikel tentang
Eat: Mushroom Magic
Dengan url
http://koraninternetonline.blogspot.com/2012/11/eat-mushroom-magic.html
Anda boleh menyebar luaskannya atau mengcopy paste-nya
Eat: Mushroom Magic
namun jangan lupa untuk meletakkan link
sebagai sumbernya
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar