Mushroom Seasoning

Cooking

7 Feb

We know that our fresh mushrooms have a great flavour, a gentle nuttiness that’s super versatile for so many types of cuisines. We’ve a great collection of recipes we have been adding to since we created our Facebook recipe page, a space where our customers share their dishes and ideas too. https://www.facebook.com/groups/2600463216681400

Dried mushrooms and seasonings like rosemary in a wooden pestle and morta

We wanted to further explore how we can use our Grey Oyster Mushrooms in cooking. Trying to get the best from our mushrooms, dehydrating to preserve them, preserve their goodness and intensify their flavour. So we started to explore the idea of stock, salt and seasoning. We searched to create a recipe that intensifies flavour. Packs an umami punch! The addictive saltiness found in strong cheese or cured meats. It creates the depth of flavour of a dish cooked low and slow. There’s a great article in Guardian that discusses Umami and our desire for the Fifth basic flavour marker. You can read it here-https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2013/apr/09/umami-fifth-taste

We made a coarse mushroom powder, added a good array of fresh herbs that we also dehydrated, and quality rock salt. Now we’re addicted and add it to everything! A perfect addition to savoury dishes. A magic sprinkling of flavour and goodness.

Here’s how we make our Mushroom Salt!

Small cut up pieces of grey oyster mushrooms on a plastic dish being dried out

We pick herbs grown in the garden at Caley HQ, add them to the dehydrator too. This process takes around 24 hours, the bigger mushrooms need a lot more time. You can shred them to speed up the drying process, but personally we like to leave them big and beautiful until ready to grind. Once fully preserved, we grind them down. We’ve tried using both a spice grinder and pestle and mortar. Found that the texture when doing it by hand, makes a much coarser texture, which mixes well with the salt and herbs, and makes for a great seasoning to all kinds of dishes. From a sprinkling on eggs at breakfast, to a soup, broth or Bolognese. We’ve created a proud pot of that umami wflavour that all savoury dishes need for richness.