Growing Shiitakes

We were part of a White Elephant gift exchange with friends over Christmas, and were thrilled when we unwrapped a Shiitake mushroom growing kit. Immediately, we vocally gushed and then gave the stink eye around the room to anyone who might consider stealing our present. It worked.

Having lived for two years in Kennett Square, PA, "the mushroom capital of the world," and toured a few mushroom growing houses in the area, I've always wanted to get a batch of mushrooms going, but it's been one of those simple and easy indulgences I've just never acted on.

If you're an apartment dweller or a city dweller and don't have a patch of soil to grow vegetables or herbs, this may be the thing to placate the primal urge we all have to grow something edible. It's so simple. Here we go...
Take your mushroom kit (basically a block of spore inoculated substrate) out of the box, and read the directions. The kit you get may have different direction, but below is what happened when we followed the direction with our kit. The block may already be sprouting, but in our case it was not, so the block still wrapped in the incubation bag went into the fridge for 3-5 days.
Then the bag was cut open at the top and the block was soaked in water (spring, well, rain, or boiled tap water) for 24 hours.
The block goes down to the basement (or any room with indirect sunlight and temps in the range of 60-80 degrees). The bag is turned upside down to form a humidity tent over the block. Skewers are poked in the block to hold the bag up. The surface of the block gets misted 3-4 times a day with water (spring, well, rain, or boiled tap water). This is what the surface of our kit looked like at the beginning or the misting — white, popcorn-like bumps.
Misting multiple times daily and with the humidity tent still on, after about 10 days, the surface started to blacken and blister, which are young mushrooms beginning to form.About two weeks into the daily misting program, a protuberance appeared (kind of nubby like the one on the top middle of the block), and over a few days developed into a full grown mushroom (like the one on the top right corner of the block).

Supposedly, we'll continue to get flushes of mushrooms for the next 6 months. Yay! I'll try to update about how many and for how long we got mushrooms.

Mushroom Dip

Chances are, you're going to a potluck, party, or holiday event in the coming weeks, and you've got to bring something edible to share. Most likely, something in the appetizer category. I've got your problem solved. You should bring this mushroom dip.

The inspiration for this dip comes from a very similar dish brought by Urban Vegan to a Philly Food Blogger Potluck waaaay back in January that turned out to be our favorite contribution of the night. Yeah, a dip. Crazy! (We just had our fifth potluck last weekend, and I'd like to give a big thanks to all the new bloggers that came out...and Rick Nichols!)
This almost paté-like dip gets it's richness from toasted pecans, mushrooms, and port, and will put any hummus to shame. I took it to a party a couple of months ago, and got recipe requests, so here it is.

What did I change from Urban Vegan's recipe? I added onions and rosemary, and subbed port for sherry.
Mushroom Dip

1 cup pecans, toasted
2 tablespoon olive oil
1 pound mushrooms (crimini, or baby bella), sliced
1 small onion, chopped
2-4 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup Port (can substitute Sherry or red wine)
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped
salt
pepper

• Pulse toasted pecans in food processor until finely chopped, almost flour-like.
• Saute onions in olive oil until translucent. Add mushrooms, garlic, rosemary, and salt and pepper to taste (don't be shy with the salt), and saute until mushrooms start to soften.
  
• Add Port to mushrooms, and reduce until most of the liquid has cooked off.
• To the pecans in the food processor, add cooked mushrooms and onions (saving any cooking liquid), and process until smooth. Adjust seasoning and add some cooking liquid or extra olive oil if dip is too thick, and mix again.
  

Mushroom Festival

When I first moved to the Northeast for school / work, I moved to Kennett Square, PA – otherwise known as “The Mushroom capital of the World.” This weekend, I went to the Kennett Square Mushroom Festival.

Kennett Square and the immediate surrounding area in Southeastern, PA produce 40 percent of the mushrooms consumed in the United States. Most of these mushrooms get slapped with a sticker from Dole - the main distribution company - so don't disclose their PA origin.

Mushroom production in the area started more than a century ago with Quakers growing mushrooms underneath carnation beds. Italian immigrants were then employed in mushroom farms. Now, the descendents of those Italians own most of the mushroom houses and employ mostly Mexican immigrants. Mexicans, though, are beginning to own and operate their own farms.

Having lived in Kennett Square, PA and Avondale, PA for three years, I know what mushroom farms smell like. It’s not pleasant, if you’re wondering. Imagine a nose burning perfume of manure, rubber, and asparagus tainted urine. What smells is the fresh medium on which the mushrooms grow – a mixture of hay, manure and water.

While I was in school, I had the opportunity to tour some farms and learn about mushroom production. Quite fascinating! The Button, Portabella, and Crimini mushrooms most commonly found in stores are grown in shallow beds of compost in a sort of bunk bed system inside low, windowless, cinderblock buildings. The compost is inoculated with mushroom spawn. Mycelium (fungus roots) then grow. Little white mushrooms, or “pins” then appear. These tiny mushrooms grow into larger mushrooms and are then harvested about 4 to 11 weeks after the growing process starts.

"Pins" to the left and mycelium on the right.

Specialty mushrooms (Shitake, Oyster, Maitake, Enoki, etc.) are grown differently. After having toured the farms, I understand why these mushrooms are more expensive. Shitakes are grown on little composite loafs of oak sawdust and must be rotated by hand. Oyster and Maitake mushrooms are grown in plastic bags filled with sawdust. Enoki are grown in plastic jars. These loaves, bags, and jars take up more space, require different growing environments, and are more labor intensive – hence the higher price in the store.

Beech Mushrooms

Shitake Mushrooms

Grey Oyster Mushrooms

While at the festival, I indulged in fried mushrooms - something I rarely do - and cream of mushroom ice-cream! If you learn anything from Iron Chef America, it's that anything can be made into an ice-cream. Last time I went to the festival I had pumpkin mushroom ice-cream, but the pumpkin ice-cream was too spicy for me to taste the mushroom. This year I tried cream of mushroom. It wasn't bad. It tasted like sweetcream ice-cream with a hint of mushroom soup. There were, of course, hunks of button mushrooms in the ice-cream.

We left with three packages of mushrooms - Oyster, Pom Pom, and Maitake. We briefly thought about making mushroom fajitas, but with all the stroganoff being made out there, I knew exactly what I was craving. Damn, that VWaV stroganoff recipe is good. The only alteration I made, other than mushroom variety substitution, was to replace the soymilk with sour cream.