Mushroom Care

Adam’s Mushrooms’ guide to good mushroom care:

• How to store your mushroom: Store your fresh mushrooms in the vegetable drawer of the fridge, brown paper bags make great storage containers. Shiitake are best enjoyed within 5-7 days (though have been enjoyed up to a month post harvest), oyster mushrooms are ‘prime’ for 2-4 days and tend to go down hill from there. We have had success of prolonging their freshness by putting them in a plastic container, the sort you get fresh berries or lettuce in, the oyster mushroom especially seem to respond well to this. The stems of shiitake goes reddish and may dry up, but I find that once I cut into them the flesh is white and they are still good. Oyster mushrooms will start to sporulate (a white dust), turn yellow and can get a fishy smell, again they are still good and I haven’t found any change in the taste. But for the best enjoyment, cook with them before they turn so that you get the full satisfaction of cooking with these beauties!
• Where to buy mushrooms?  Do a little research before choosing a place to buy your mushrooms. Look at how the shop is storing them (hopefully cool), do they look fresh and inviting? If wrapped in plastic; are they imported or has the store wrapped them themselves? And from how far away would you like your mushrooms to come from; same County, State, Country? The produce manager should be able to answer any of these questions and maybe tell you which day they get them delivered so that you can get them fresh. Another way of getting the freshest mushrooms is to frequent your local farmers market, you should be able to get information online as to whether your nearest farmers market has a mushroom vendor.
• How much should I get?  We can’t give you the exact quantity of mushrooms you should get but we can give you some loose guidelines. For a dish in which mushrooms are just a part of it, put in approximately 2oz per person: 4oz is good for 1-2 people, 8oz for 4 people, 1lb for 8 people. For a dish in which the mushrooms is the main ingredient I would double that, it also depends on whether the dish is a starter or an entree, if its the entree you could even use 6oz per person. Luckily, recipes often tell you how much you will need. Remember that mushrooms cook down a lot!
• How to cook your mushrooms: Eating mushrooms should be a pleasure, the way you cook them is a big part of achieving this. Cultivated mushrooms don’t need any cleaning, just inspect them for flies and slugs – although rarely found. Chop them to your desired size, I use all of the oyster mushroom but will cut off the stems of the shiitake if they are woody (they can be used in stock). Get your pan hot, high heat or gas mark 9, add butter and/or canola and olive oil, pure olive oil does not stand high heat well. Add your mushrooms, avoid crowding, they cook down quickly so you may need to add them in portions. Keep an eye on your pan and turn them every minute or so for approximately 10 minutes.We like to get them really golden and crisp, this photo here is taken about 2 minutes before they’re done! We also recommend frying them before adding them to sauces, soups and other dishes. We use this method of preparing the mushrooms and have never experienced slimy or gooey mushrooms. Remember to always cook your mushrooms!

We hope that this information was useful to you, that you will have wonderful culinary experiences with fungi and feel free to share any of your advice!