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The exotic mushrooms
Name
Description
Remark
Crimini, also Italian
field, Italian brown,
Roman mushroom
Variety of the common button mushroom, but cap is
brown and has more flavor. Harvested in the button
stage.
Costs about twice the common button
mushroom.
Portabella
Crimini mushroom that is allowed to mature into a large Costs more than crimini.
cap. Darker in color (because of chocolate brown
spores). Flavor is more intense than crimini's.
Oyster, also pleurotus
Delicate flavored, mild, white with yellow or creamy
tinge, pleasant chewy texture. Has short, crooked, off-
centered stem, funnel-shaped body. Stems too tough to
eat.
Cost 2-3 times button mushroom.
Available fresh and dehydrated. Grows in
the wild.
Shiitaki, also black
mushroom, black forest dark brown cap. The stems are usually tough and
mushroom
Very flavorful, with a smokey, meaty taste and a tan to
Japanese cultivated shiitaki for centuries.
Close relative grows wild in North
America. Costs about 5 times the button
mushroom.
unusable.
Enoki, also enokitaki,
velvet stem, Christmas
mushroom
Long, thin white stem, tiny button cap. Many stems join
at the base in a clump, forming a cluster. Not much
flavor but great for garnish, in soups, salads.
Grows wild and common in winter. Costs
about 5 times the button mushroom.
Porcini in Italy, cèpe in
France
Pore mushroom, very tasty, fleshy, meaty, earthy and
fragrant.
Only grows in the wild. Rarely available
fresh but sold dehydrated at about $80 a lb
($180 a kilo).
Morel
Flavor is wonderful, but not exceptional enough to
justify its price. Neither gilled, nor pored mushroom.
Cap is like an elongated cone with a rounded-off top. It
sits on a short, stubby, ridged stem. Both cap and stem
are hollow inside. The outside of the cap is full of ridges
and pits, almost like a dried-up apple. Its color may be
yellow, white or black in the wild, usually black in the
supermarket.
Only grows in the wild. Costs 10-12 times
the button mushroom when available
fresh, except in good season. Available
dehydrated at about $120/lb ($270 a kilo).
Chanterelle
Has a vase-shaped, irregular, thick stem, and a curly,
irregular, cracked, fleshy cap with a rich yellow or
orange color and a full, earthy flavor. The most
common type is the yellow chanterelle.
Only grows in the wild. When available
fresh, it costs about 8 times the button
mushroom. Dehydrated about $80/lb
($180 a kilo).
Hen of the woods or
maitake
Excellent-tasting brown or grayish brown mushroom.
Grows in large gregarious clusters of many hugging
individual mushrooms with overlapping caps rising
from a common, fleshy base. The group looks like a
fluffed-up hen. Neither gilled, nor pore mushroom. Has
small spoon-shaped caps and rough, often tough off-
centered stalks.
Grows in the wild and in cultivation.
When available in the fall, price is about 5
times the common mushroom's.
Black fungus, also
cloud ear, tree ear,
wood ear
Looks very unappetizing dried but billows up into a
cloud or wrinkled ear shape when soaked in water. It
adds chewy crunchiness to a dish, soaks up flavors of
other ingredients but has little flavor. Slightly rubbery,
gelatinous texture, not for everyone. Neither gilled, nor
pore mushroom, has no stalk. Brown when fresh, black
when dried.
Used extensively throughout the Orient. In
America available dried, very
inexpensive.
Paddy straw mushroom Not flavorful but very common Oriental mushroom,
Grows wild on rice paddy straw in the
similar role as black fungus. Mild, delicate flavor, not as Orient and widely cultivated. As common
rubbery texture. Dark brown, small gilled mushroom.
there as button mushroom here.
Inexpensive dried.
play © erdosh 156
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