Cooking with Dried Mushrooms

Fresh mushrooms are usually preferred for most culinary endeavors and are hard to beat in some applications like sauteed mushrooms on top of a steak.  Unfortunately, fresh gourmet mushrooms are not always available and have a limited shelf life when they are available.  Many foraged mushrooms are seasonal and simply unavailable out of season.  So the main advantage of using dried mushrooms is that they will keep indefinitely if stored properly.  Knowing this leads to a little-known fresh mushroom storage hack.  After storing your fresh mushrooms in the refrigerator for a few days, if you still are not ready to use them, set them out in the open air to begin drying.  This will keep them from spoiling and having to be tossed out.  So, how do we use our dried mushrooms?

We have two choices for our dried mushrooms.  We can powder them by putting them in a blender at top speed for a minute or two and use the mushroom powder.  Or we can rehydrate them either in the process of producing a stock or in preparation to treat them like fresh mushrooms in the cooking process.  When making a beef, chicken, or vegetable stock adding dried mushrooms will definitely make a nice addition to the umami flavor of your stock.  You can also make a pure mushroom stock which would level up a mushroom risotto dish to be sure.   To use your dried mushrooms in a recipe you can soak or simmer or boil your mushrooms in some water to, “bring them back to life”.  Another option is to rehydrate the dried mushrooms using beef or chicken stock to enhance the flavor of the mushroom in your recipe.  Once your mushrooms are rehydrated, you will be able to add them to your recipe just as you would fresh mushrooms.  A third option for your dried mushrooms to add flavor to soup, stew, or a roast of some kind is to throw a few dried mushrooms in your seasoning sachet or add and remove dried mushrooms as you would a bay leaf.  

A final tip is to always start with small portions to make sure your tummy and tastebuds will tolerate/enjoy the fungus among us.

Mush Luv,