Gorgeous Exotic Shiitake Mushrooms are known for their strong aroma and distinctive garlic-like taste.
For the dressing:
1 tablespoon red or white wine vinegar or sherry vinegar- 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
- 1 small garlic clove, finely minced or ccrushed in a mortar and pestle
- Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (substitute some yogurt or buttermilk for some of the olive oil for a low-fat dressing)
For the salad:
- 6 large or 8 smaller fresh Shiitake mushrooms, stemmed and sliced (discard the stems or use for stock)
- 1 teaspoon canola oil
- Salt to taste
- 170 – 200g baby spinach, rinsed and dried
- 1 celery stalk, preferably from the inner heart of the celery, sliced very thin
- 1 – 2 tablespoons pine nuts or broken walnut pieces, lightly toasted
- 30g crumbled goat cheese
1. Mix together the vinegar and lemon juice with the garlic, salt, pepper, and Dijon mustard using a fork or a small whisk. Whisk in the olive oil and the yogurt or buttermilk if using. Set aside.
2. Combine the spinach, nuts, celery, and goat cheese in a salad bowl.
3. Heat a pan over medium high heat. Add 1 teaspoon oil and when very hot, add the mushrooms. Shake the pan once, then let the mushrooms cook without moving them around until they begin to sweat and soften (watch closely). After about a minute or two, when they have begun to sear and release moisture, you can move them around in the pan. Cook for about 5 minutes, season to taste with salt and pepper and remove from the heat. Add to the spinach mixture and toss with the dressing. Serve at once.
Wow, I did not realize mushrooms had so many minerals! That is great news. I was not really a fan of mushrooms until recently, when I transitioned to Shiitake. Now I eat them as part of a balanced meal plan to make sure I get all my nutrients. Feeling great with lots of energy. Everyone should incorporate more raw foods into their lifestyle.
For a number of years now I have run a small mail order calatog for mushroom growers called Mushroompeople. Shiitake are actually quite easy to grow but they do have their limits. I am not surprised that the initial spawn run would take two years, and that is not uncommon for some varieties of cold weather strains. Our most popular variety, 510, can fruit in 4-6 months and has a fruiting range of 50F to 80F. Other varieties will have their own specific ranges.About Jim’s question, while we don’t get -50F here, we have gotten -30 and the shiitake is not bothered by that. It will go dormant in cold months and grow vigorously as soon as it gets warm enough (above 45 for most strains). Strains vary and some will be much better in cold climates than others. What bothers it more is heat it should not be allowed to exceed 100F and most dark woods are collectors. So if you bring it indoors, don’t park it near the wood stove.Cottonwood. Alder and Birch are all viable but a caveat is in order. Shiitake comes from Japanese shii (oak) take fungus. It most favors thick-barked hardwoods. While it will grow in thin barks like birch and cherry, as the bark ages on the dead log, that paper-thin covering will dry up and blow away, leaving the wood exposed. This is bad for shiitake, and so a relatively short production life can be anticipated. In a thick-barked hardwood cut in winter when the sap is in the cambium, you can get one year of production for every inch of diameter. One year of production may be all you get in birch, I am afraid.Hope this helps, Graham. We plan to devote a day to mushroom cultivation in the Permaculture course planned for Lillieoru Estonia in early October this year. It is a fun activity in winter that can reward you with high-protein food in the early Spring.
You can grow Pleurotis (oyster) and Agaricus (button, portobello) muhmoross on coffee grounds but not Lentinus (shiitake). They need a hardwood substrate such as oak logs or sawdust. The shiitake will keep best if you pick it when the caps still have some curl and you leave the stems on. Once they flatten out they go faster and do not have the lentinans that are good for blood pressure and cholesterol management, and also lose some flavor. Cold nights and warm days this time of year produce cracking, that heals and recracks as the muhmoross expand, giving them the distinctive shiitake hanadonko pattern. That also improves both taste and medicinal quality. Once they are fruiting there is little danger of drying out (their metabolic process generates water) but there is risk in letting the logs get soggy, inviting tricoderms, so a sunny resting place is good for the log life and also mushroom color.