Special Mushrooms and their Relative Cooking Times

My mother-in-law forwarded me an email yesterday regarding the health benefits of enokitake.The enokitake in the picture above has other names, such as golden needle mushroom (金针菇) and velvet shank mushroom. While it is easy to find this mushroom in Singapore in vacuum sealed packets, it is difficult to find in regular supermarkets here. I would probably have to go to an "Asian Supermarket" to buy it.

The email also boasted astounding health benefits of this product of nature: being able to kill 95% of cancer cells by consumption (it can be eaten raw) or extracted to a drip (how incredible is that!) into your bloodstream. I guess the enokitake deserves a place amongst the 'Super-Foods', a term coined in recent years for natural foods with super properties.

What about the health properties of other mushrooms? Most mushrooms can be eaten raw like the enokitake, and surely they have health properties too albeit less documented and circulated. There are also certain dangers I have heard of - other than the obvious fact not to consume toadstools. For example, after washing/ soaking some 冬菇 dried shiitake mushrooms as seen in the picture above, you may think that the water is now "mushroom flavoured" and you may be tempted to use it for cooking. You may even smell the fragrance of the mushrooms in the water. WARNING! THROW THE WATER AWAY. I've heard that there may be poisonous chemicals due to the preservation process. I may not have scientific evidence for it, but surely there are better ways to flavour your food. Better to err on the side of caution. If you know of other health properties of other mushrooms, comment on this article please. :-)

Anyway, time to get onto the first part of my topic:

Special Mushrooms: Introducing 4 types not-so-common cultured mushrooms

Guess what these four mushrooms are? (Hahaha since I my previous post on fruits was already tough for some, here's some useful information to help you guess. I will provide my answers towards the end of this post.) By the way, here's where I bought them from: The Saturday Farmer's Market! This mushroom stall is one amongst many freshly farmed food stalls in the market. All produce (vegetables, fruits, fungi, meat, dairy, honey, wine, etc) are products of New York State, so the farmers probably had to drive down a few hours from the suburbs into NYC every Saturday morning to set up their stalls. This is probably one of those movements to encourage Americans to "Eat Fresh, Eat Local". Although touted to be fresher, healthier, and smaller in carbon foot prints compared to air freight groceries, food at the Farmer's Market is NOT cheaper. lol... Nevertheless, I was excited to try more uncommon species of fungi and talk to the mushroom farmers about it, especially about cooking them.

In summary, I noticed three things:

1. The four unique mushrooms are double or triple the price/lb compared common mushrooms such as white-button, fresh shiitake or portabello.

2. They are more perishable after harvesting compared to common mushrooms (which is possibly they are seldom stocked in supermarkets as they are expensive and they decay too fast).

3. Their cooking time is much shorter than common mushrooms, some maybe just dipping it into boiling water in a short flash, or thrown in as the last item in a stir fry, or just a quick sear on a hot pan on the sides, not totally cooking the whole thing. Of course, they can also be eaten raw.

Cooking it - I feel - is the most interesting part.

I remember my mother would 焖冬菇 braise the re-hydrated dried shiitake mushrooms with 发菜 black moss fungi and other goodies. For hours, and the mushroom would still have a nice bite to it. It tastes even better the next day. It can even be packed into the freezer, and two months later re-heated, and the mushroom would still have a good bite to it. Not all mushrooms can do that.

Other common fresh mushrooms such as the white button mushroom and the portabello can also take quite a bit of heat. They can be lightly seasoned and baked for 45min in the 350F oven and turn out juicy and succulent on the inside. Here's a picture of 2 large portabellos with small chunks of butter hubby and I placed on the grill during our mini-barbecue outings at the park.

Let the portabellos sit on the grill until the butter melts, mingling with the juices that are naturally released by the portabellos due to the heat. It can take a while, but it's yummy!
But the four special mushrooms I bought cannot be cooked for such a long duration in such high heat. So what did I do? I went to an All-Organic Supermart and bought this:

I decided that the mushrooms were delicate, and did not want them to be wasted by charring and sticking to the frying pan. So rather than boiling them in plain water, why not get some ready-made soup and add mushrooms to it?

And finally, here are the answers to:

What are the names of the special mushrooms and their relative cooking time?

Are you ready for the answers? ...*drum roll*

1. Lion's Mane a.k.a. pom pom mushroom, a.k.a. beard mushroom

This one must be cooked very lightly, the lightest of all 4 mushrooms. Just drop it into the boiling soup and turn off the fire at once. It's ready to serve. The flavour is 'likened to that of the lobster or crab'. In fact, it looked like shark's fins when I was peeling it apart with my fingers:

2. King Oyster Mushrooms a.k.a. eryngii or eringii mushroom
The ones that I got this time were smaller younger ones, and the flavour was sweet and the texture was nice to chew on but not rubbery. To get that texture, I could only boil it for 3 minutes - like maggi mee instant noodles. Longer than that and it could be too rubbery/ chewy. They can actually grow much bigger, and I think it might actually be found in supermarkets in Singapore. You can cut it vertically like fries or horizontally like scallops.
3. Hen-of-The-Woods Mushroom, a.k.a. Maitake,

This one appears to have healing properties too... It is said to be effective against leukemia, stomach and bone cancers as well as type 2 diabetes. Which one do you think tastes better raw, the enokitake (golden needles) or the maitake (hen-of-the-woods)? I think the hen-of-the-woods tastes better. The mushroom farmer peeled some and gave it to be confidently to try it raw when I was at the Farmer's Market. The taste is mild and "mushroomy" - for lack of a better word. There's no sour-ness like the golden needle mushroom might have (some people taste some hint of sourness in the enokitake mushroom). Cooking time is very short, shorter than the king oyster mushroom, but can withstand heat better than the lion's mane mushroom. I put it in to boil for only 1 minute before turning the heat off. Here you can see the maitake on the left beside the lion's mane mushroom. Both were the last to go into the pot, and both were prepared similarly: washed and pry-ed into smaller pieces with my fingers. 4. Last but not least, I am disappointed to say that I can't be sure what mushroom it is. It could possibly be the Nameko mushroom that has been outgrown its smaller size into a bigger longer size. I will go to the farmer's market again to find out, and will leave the answer in the comments.This particular mushroom can be left boiling for 5 minutes in the soup before serving. I've never had so much fresh chunks of mushrooms in my soup before. :-DSo yup, that's all, I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed my rich-tasting mushroom soup. Have a great week!