There are a number of foods that i don’t like raw, but would not tell others they shouldn’t enjoy them. I happen to like raw mushrooms, including when they are under-cooked on pizza. And though variety is the spice of life, there is nothing wrong with the common button mushroom. All in all, this article is advice on how to eat mushrooms by someone who doesn’t seem to like them. What’s next: “if you must eat raw broccoli for god’s sake dip it in some ranch”?
I think the big take away was to be aware of and take into account the amount of liquid that gets released by mushrooms when cooked. Raw mushrooms in an oven on top of pizza will result in soggy pizza.
Reading this made me hungry! I’m the high heat, minimum oil, pan sautéed mushroom devotee. I like them deeply browned and salt IS the magic enhancer. My favorite is Portebello but I have started to love oyster and shiitake. Oyster, in particular, has such an interesting texture. Smoked paprika sounds divine and I’ll have to look into that. My favorite way to eat salad (don’t do pizza) is to mix hot and cold ingredients together. I like how it kind of wilts the greens and melts the cheese. I never liked the raw mushrooms from a salad bar - not a lot of flavor or texture in my opinion.
+1 on the “mix hot and cold together.” I love salads with fresh sautéed veggies, including shrooms. Taking that concept even further, I make ramen (skip the flavor packet, use my own spices instead) and pour the whole thing into a huge bowl over a bed of lettuce. Obviously dark green leaves are better, but I just did it last night with iceberg because it was the only leafy green I could find. Still super dank. MEGA wilty. Pepper grinder and hot sauce stay on the table because I re-up every few bites.
I looked up the nutritional value of iceberg lettuce a long time ago Bill because I’m such a huge fan. And I found it has gotten a bum wrap. There are nutrients in this crunchy underappraciated lettuce, so enjoy without guilt! I use it as my “bread” when making a veggie burger sandwich - it’s delightful! Romaine works too. And I have stirfired iceberg with great success and have gotten addicted to grilled Romaine - OMG, fantastic! AND, Tyler turned me on to hot sauce recently and I have not looked back! It’s a constant now in my refrigerator. I LOVE the changes, the delights, the way food can be so reperesentative of how we open ourselves to the new!
Love the hot and cold salad, you def turned me on to that. Also I don’t know if I’ve ever told you before but I feel like I should do it publicly for accountability’s sake that I regret and apologize for giving you grief so many years ago over the chopped salad idea! I was so naive and thought “what difference does it make how you cut something” come to realize that’s 1/2 of all cooking and flavor is how you cut something! Mama’s always ahead of the curve.
Ahhhh, who would have guessed an article about mushrooms could bring such joy and love! No apology necessary, as it’s always best to have your own experience as to whether something is valid for you or not. I’m glad the chopped has made it’s way into your repertoire! I love how the chopping releases the juices and creates the melding of flavors, so much so that I rarely need any kind of dressing. It also solves the problem of volume. How to get a lot of quality vitamins and minerals without having a mound of vegetables to ingest. Concentrated goodness, much like my sweet pea!
I’ve been on a mushroom tear lately and this was great info. I have been sautéing them in butter, slowly. I’m dying for a mushroom omelette now with this recipe. Loving the cooking articles!
Just got a vegan pie with mushrooms, peppers & onions from a 60 year old spot in Queens and it was sooo good it got me thinking about this delicate science. Their mushrooms were super nostalgic tasting to me and very specific of pizza mushrooms. I didn’t think I had ever had or would want to have canned mushrooms but that’s how i imagined they’d taste and it is perfect for pizza! They probably cook them themselves at this place though. The peppers on this pie were also definitely pre cooked because they were big & green & juicy and the red onion I saw them sprinkle on raw right before tossing it in the oven and it was so finely diced it took on a beautiful texture. One of my favorite ways to enjoy mushrooms is to thickly slice a portobello cap and dry sauté it with some dry dill, parsley, salt & smoked paprika. I’ll add a little water or oil to encourage the juices to release and then scoop them all up with all the juices and refrigerate. I use them in place of anchovies in a Caesar salad but they’d definitely be good af on pizza too.
So glad I read this article! I've definitely been babying my mushrooms, always afraid to give them too much heat. I also used to slice up baby bellas and put them on my salad raw. I actually like the texture but your anchovy replacement sounds much better. I always just thought of canned mushrooms as "pizza mushrooms," an association born out of eating countless mushroom slices from 3 Brothers. In fact the unscripted line "how about a pizza with mushrooms" is the sole utterance I can recall reciting when we appeared on that MTV segment with Jesse the VJ. Another go-to slice was Sicilian with peppers and onions. It wasn't on the menu but most everyone would just toss some on the grill while the pizza was warming up. Lucy would put them on raw after taking the pizza out of the oven which totally threw me at first but ended up becoming my favorite way to have them (as long as they were very thinly sliced).
Wow yeah I can’t imagine that but definitely want to try it! Cafe Italia has an amazing focaccia that’s basically a marinara Sicilian, I’ll bring my best knife and some p&o’s next time to try!
Omg. Perfect timing. I’ve been going crazy with mushrooms lately, the “stems and pieces,” (brand: Pennsylvania Dutch, in a can) and sometimes I can find tiny whole ones in very small jars. Baby bellas I assume. I don’t have a fridge and I’m always cooking for one, so I’ve been a bit limited ingredient-wise. (Thank god carrots, onions and potatoes are so resilient.) I love that mushrooms seem to come in smaller sized jars/cans in general. Why is that? (Even a normal size can of corn is just way too much corn.)
I sauté my shrooms aggressively, sometimes filling Sputnik with steam and smoke, with tons of garlic and fresh spinach. I do that every few days. I also drop them in pretty much any chili or stew, right before the finish line. Is “umami” the word for that fungal, almost fishy flavor?
There are a number of foods that i don’t like raw, but would not tell others they shouldn’t enjoy them. I happen to like raw mushrooms, including when they are under-cooked on pizza. And though variety is the spice of life, there is nothing wrong with the common button mushroom. All in all, this article is advice on how to eat mushrooms by someone who doesn’t seem to like them. What’s next: “if you must eat raw broccoli for god’s sake dip it in some ranch”?
I think the big take away was to be aware of and take into account the amount of liquid that gets released by mushrooms when cooked. Raw mushrooms in an oven on top of pizza will result in soggy pizza.
Reading this made me hungry! I’m the high heat, minimum oil, pan sautéed mushroom devotee. I like them deeply browned and salt IS the magic enhancer. My favorite is Portebello but I have started to love oyster and shiitake. Oyster, in particular, has such an interesting texture. Smoked paprika sounds divine and I’ll have to look into that. My favorite way to eat salad (don’t do pizza) is to mix hot and cold ingredients together. I like how it kind of wilts the greens and melts the cheese. I never liked the raw mushrooms from a salad bar - not a lot of flavor or texture in my opinion.
+1 on the “mix hot and cold together.” I love salads with fresh sautéed veggies, including shrooms. Taking that concept even further, I make ramen (skip the flavor packet, use my own spices instead) and pour the whole thing into a huge bowl over a bed of lettuce. Obviously dark green leaves are better, but I just did it last night with iceberg because it was the only leafy green I could find. Still super dank. MEGA wilty. Pepper grinder and hot sauce stay on the table because I re-up every few bites.
I looked up the nutritional value of iceberg lettuce a long time ago Bill because I’m such a huge fan. And I found it has gotten a bum wrap. There are nutrients in this crunchy underappraciated lettuce, so enjoy without guilt! I use it as my “bread” when making a veggie burger sandwich - it’s delightful! Romaine works too. And I have stirfired iceberg with great success and have gotten addicted to grilled Romaine - OMG, fantastic! AND, Tyler turned me on to hot sauce recently and I have not looked back! It’s a constant now in my refrigerator. I LOVE the changes, the delights, the way food can be so reperesentative of how we open ourselves to the new!
Love the hot and cold salad, you def turned me on to that. Also I don’t know if I’ve ever told you before but I feel like I should do it publicly for accountability’s sake that I regret and apologize for giving you grief so many years ago over the chopped salad idea! I was so naive and thought “what difference does it make how you cut something” come to realize that’s 1/2 of all cooking and flavor is how you cut something! Mama’s always ahead of the curve.
Ahhhh, who would have guessed an article about mushrooms could bring such joy and love! No apology necessary, as it’s always best to have your own experience as to whether something is valid for you or not. I’m glad the chopped has made it’s way into your repertoire! I love how the chopping releases the juices and creates the melding of flavors, so much so that I rarely need any kind of dressing. It also solves the problem of volume. How to get a lot of quality vitamins and minerals without having a mound of vegetables to ingest. Concentrated goodness, much like my sweet pea!
I’ve been on a mushroom tear lately and this was great info. I have been sautéing them in butter, slowly. I’m dying for a mushroom omelette now with this recipe. Loving the cooking articles!
Just got a vegan pie with mushrooms, peppers & onions from a 60 year old spot in Queens and it was sooo good it got me thinking about this delicate science. Their mushrooms were super nostalgic tasting to me and very specific of pizza mushrooms. I didn’t think I had ever had or would want to have canned mushrooms but that’s how i imagined they’d taste and it is perfect for pizza! They probably cook them themselves at this place though. The peppers on this pie were also definitely pre cooked because they were big & green & juicy and the red onion I saw them sprinkle on raw right before tossing it in the oven and it was so finely diced it took on a beautiful texture. One of my favorite ways to enjoy mushrooms is to thickly slice a portobello cap and dry sauté it with some dry dill, parsley, salt & smoked paprika. I’ll add a little water or oil to encourage the juices to release and then scoop them all up with all the juices and refrigerate. I use them in place of anchovies in a Caesar salad but they’d definitely be good af on pizza too.
So glad I read this article! I've definitely been babying my mushrooms, always afraid to give them too much heat. I also used to slice up baby bellas and put them on my salad raw. I actually like the texture but your anchovy replacement sounds much better. I always just thought of canned mushrooms as "pizza mushrooms," an association born out of eating countless mushroom slices from 3 Brothers. In fact the unscripted line "how about a pizza with mushrooms" is the sole utterance I can recall reciting when we appeared on that MTV segment with Jesse the VJ. Another go-to slice was Sicilian with peppers and onions. It wasn't on the menu but most everyone would just toss some on the grill while the pizza was warming up. Lucy would put them on raw after taking the pizza out of the oven which totally threw me at first but ended up becoming my favorite way to have them (as long as they were very thinly sliced).
Wow yeah I can’t imagine that but definitely want to try it! Cafe Italia has an amazing focaccia that’s basically a marinara Sicilian, I’ll bring my best knife and some p&o’s next time to try!
Omg. Perfect timing. I’ve been going crazy with mushrooms lately, the “stems and pieces,” (brand: Pennsylvania Dutch, in a can) and sometimes I can find tiny whole ones in very small jars. Baby bellas I assume. I don’t have a fridge and I’m always cooking for one, so I’ve been a bit limited ingredient-wise. (Thank god carrots, onions and potatoes are so resilient.) I love that mushrooms seem to come in smaller sized jars/cans in general. Why is that? (Even a normal size can of corn is just way too much corn.)
I sauté my shrooms aggressively, sometimes filling Sputnik with steam and smoke, with tons of garlic and fresh spinach. I do that every few days. I also drop them in pretty much any chili or stew, right before the finish line. Is “umami” the word for that fungal, almost fishy flavor?
(I want a shroomy bahn mi right now!!)