How to cook wild mushrooms or prepare them for freezing….

It’s currently St George Mushroom season (Calocybe gambosa) where I’m staying at the moment, so I’ve been cooking with them a lot and preparing them for freezing.

I thought I’d post a few tips…these will equally work for shop bought mushrooms too (…always buy organic.)

Most wild mushrooms need to be cooked. They can contain a lot of water, like St George Mushrooms. The best approach to cooking them is to dry sauté.

Slice your mushrooms and begin to cook them in a dry frying pan, as they start to ‘fry’ keep them moving, they’ll begin to give off their water. As I mentioned earlier St George mushrooms have a lot in them.

Pour this 'mushroom broth’ into a jar or bowl, and put to one side.

Add a big knob of butter to the mushrooms and fry for a few minutes. If the mushrooms are to be frozen, remove from the heat and allow them to cool, before placing them into a container.

If we’re going to continue cooking the mushrooms for eating here’s a great ‘hack’ to incredible flavour…..

Take some of the mushroom water and dissolve a little miso into it (whatever is your favourite kind) at about a 3:1 ratio of water to miso. Turn the heat up on the mushrooms and pour the miso mix into the pan. Let it sizzle away and soak into the mushrooms.

This would probably work well with something like Marmite or a little soy sauce.

That saved mushroom ‘broth’ is already full of flavour, now we’ve took it up to another level……..

Serve up on a piece of toast and enjoy!