Button Mushrooms

Growing up, I hated mushrooms. They were kind of slimy, earthy, and smelled of gym socks. How could anyone possibly like these things on anything? As far as I was concerned, the entire fungi industry was a conspiracy created by a bunch of whack-jobs.

Fast forward a few hundred years and I love mushrooms! They can be delicate, yet savory and crispy at the same time. You can make something as simple as a mushroom risotto and utilize the entire mushroom to the fullest. Now, since going through various fine dining restaurants and culinary school, I’ve developed a few methods for cooking them.

There are a few things you need to understand first:

Mushrooms are a fungus. Therefore they grow off of a food source, as opposed to using chlorophyll to absorb the sunlight. The mushrooms you buy in the grocery store are grown in a decaying matter and you don’t want that flavor competing with your delicate beauties. Rinse them off! I know it sounds weird, but trust me, it makes a huge difference. Let them dry out on a towel on the counter or baking sheet before executing a cooking process.

High water content. Clocking it at over 90% water, the mushroom has a lot of flavor to concentrate into one little morsel. The point of this cooking process is to extract the moisture in the most efficient manner. The ingredients I chose to use really accentuate the mushroom and allow it to conform easily to another dish or standalone by itself.

Super absorbent of flavors. As moisture escapes, it leaves a void to be filled by flavor. By filling it with fat (which is less dense than water) you are able to allow more flavor to be absorbed into the mushroom. You can mess around with different ingredients until you find what best suits your taste buds, but I find this to be an all-around winner.

Remove the stems. I’ve found that some places will keep mushrooms on the shelves for a really long time and still sell them, and then they continue to sit in the fridge for another week or so. You can’t really tell when a stem is going to end up tasting woody, and that completely ruins a mushroom more than a mushy one. So just throw it into the compost pile or stock pot.

Today I’m sharing what I feel is a fool-proof way of making those basic button mushrooms and the most delicious addition to any dish. I use them in omelets, frittatas, pizza, Stromboli, and casseroles. These also make a great addition to any stir-fry or sauté dish.

BONUS: combine with caramelized cauliflower for a meat substitute in tacos or quesadillas. It tastes and feels just like steak!

Prep time: 10 minutes

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 packs button mushrooms (about 2 lbs) rinsed and stemmed

30 sprigs of fresh thyme (lemon thyme preferred) or sage

Salt (smoke sea salt preferred)

Pepper (fresh ground)

½ stick butter or ½ cup garlic infused oil

Directions:

1. Cut mushroom caps into 6ths. Start with a half, and then make two cuts in the center of one half (making a “V”). The idea here is to make all the cuts roughly the same size so they cook evenly.
2. Put a cast iron or heavy gauged pan over a medium heat. Once the pan is hot, place a 2 Tablespoons of butter in the pan and allow to melt.
3. Toss the mushrooms into the hot pan. Make sure that mushrooms have about ½” of space between all of them. You may need to do a few batches to complete the whole task.
4. Throw in about 10 sprigs of thyme. Season with salt and pepper. Feel free to go a little more liberal on the salt than you usually do, it aides in extracting moisture from the mushrooms.
   
5. Move mushrooms around occasionally until all sides are dark brown, but not burnt.
6. Add more butter if you notice that the browning process is slowing down after 5 minutes or so.
7. The result will look like this once it's cooled.