Every once in a while, a cookbook comes along that you realize you’ve needed for years. “Shroom: Mind-Bendingly Good Recipes for Cultivated and Wild Mushrooms,” by Seattle’s Becky Selengut, is that kind of book. The private chef, cooking teacher and author of “Good Fish” has a clear and disarming style. Her passion for woodsy treasures underfoot is infectious.
Plenty of mushroom books on the market focus on how to hunt down and identify the scores of varieties, or they tantalize readers with recipes calling for the ones most difficult to find. Selengut, however, skips the foraging instructions and zeros in on 15 commonly available species. (I would be surprised if you couldn’t find at least eight of them, growing wild and at markets, no matter where you live.) Then she works them for all they’re worth, drawing deep for flavor and casting wide for multicultural flavor influences, which makes for an irresistible blend of practicality and romance.
Fresh porcinis and lobster mushrooms are stubbornly scarce where I live, and black truffles stubbornly expensive. Even so, the sheer abundance of good-looking and doable recipes for more-common specimens in this book inspired me to undertake a veritable testing spree.
Portobellos, creminis and button mushrooms act as gateway fungi in “Shroom’s” first chapter. A cremini-and-beef bourguignon bubbled its leisurely way through the hours into a hearty but straightforward stew.
Portobellos lent their beefy heft to tacos, loaded with cabbage-and-lime slaw and doused with a surprising cacao-chili sauce. The sauce hid an ingredient: dried goji berries, whose high-five dose of power sugar sent mixed messages in an otherwise messily satisfying dish.
Oyster mushrooms were new to me as a cook. I was happily surprised by both their depth of flavor and their reasonable price; check your local Asian market. Melted into a boozy ragout, they draped in savory splendor over egg noodles and would probably do the same for polenta or even pizza.
Selengut turns to the now-common shiitake to good effect in Asian dishes. Its dense texture and baritone character make a good match for soy flavors. Powerful on its own, it goes nuclear when seasoned with a soy dressing and porcini powder. The combination of an accompanying nuoc cham, herbs, rice noodles and charred shiitakes created a salad so unforgettable, I didn’t even mind that the parchment ignited when I broiled the mushrooms as directed. Next time, I’m using aluminum foil.
Hedgehog mushrooms stood in for meat in a chili studded with cashews; despite bold seasoning with ancho chili, oregano and fire-roasted tomatoes, it just doesn’t compare in flavor to a beef chili. The toasted cashews provided a pleasant surprise, though, supplying a hint of butter and a flicker of texture every few forkfuls.
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