Vegan, Keto, Paleo Friendly

I just took a 3 day course on mushroom cultivation, learning how to grow more of my own food. It was amazing and I learned the proper way to cook mushrooms. All mushrooms are medicinal, even those little white button mushrooms. The way you cook them helps unleash their therapeutic properties.

There are two phases of cooking: 1. With water. 2. With oil/fat. The polysaccharides (Beta Glucans) are water soluble and the fat extracts the secondary metabolites like terpenoids.   I’ll explain the details below in the Preparation section.

You are welcome to use any mushrooms you desire. I used to forage for wild lobster mushrooms when I lived in Flagstaff, Arizona and loved their tender flesh and bright orange color. Button mushrooms are also therapeutic so use what you can find and enjoy. Health food stores like Whole Foods often carry a larger variety of mushrooms, even Lion’s mane, known to be beneficial to the brain and nervous system or Turkey tail for your immune system. If you can’t find all the mushrooms listed below just use what you can find. A wider variety renders different flavors and textures, which I prefer.

Serves 4

Ingredients

  • 250 g Oyster mushrooms
  • 250 g Shitake mushrooms
  • 250 g Portobello mushrooms
  • 250 g Maitake mushrooms
  • 2 teaspoons sea salt
  • 4 cloves garlic, peeled and minced (a more exotic choice is fermented black garlic, which is very sweet)
  • 2 Tbsp oil for cooking (I prefer coconut, or avocado or ghee)
  • Spring water for cooking. Approximately 1 cup or so.

Optional:

  • 1 sweet yellow onion, peeled and chopped. This could be added toward the end of the water cooking phase or with the oil or ghee cooking phase.

Instructions

  1. Prepare the mushrooms by pulling them apart with your fingers, do not cut or chop with a knife. Take care to shred the stems well, as if you’re peeling string cheese. Lovingly tear the mushroom tops apart with your fingers and place them in a large bowl.
  2. In a large pan (no lid necessary), add the mushrooms and water and begin to cook on low-medium heat. There should be enough water that the mushrooms all have contact with it, but not completely floating as with a soup. Stir regularly. Do not cover.  Cook them for a while until you see brown liquid at the bottom and the water starts to evaporate off.
  3. When the water has cooked down and you see some brown liquid at the bottom, and the mushrooms are looking tender, add the oil or ghee and the garlic. If you need more, feel free to add. You want all the mushrooms to have a small bit of oil on them. Cook again for another 10 minutes or so, until the mushrooms soak up the oil. You may opt to cook for 15-20 plus minutes to get a bit more crispiness in your mushrooms. Experiment and play. This would also be the time to add a drizzle of your favorite balsamic such as fig.
  4. Don’t worry, you can’t overcook a mushroom. The two phases of cooking in water and then fat, help release all of the different therapeutic properties the mushrooms have to offer you.
  5. Serve on a bed of steamed greens, with your favorite protein source, or eat them on their own as your protein source! There is no need to add much more to them, but you can experiment with a drizzle of coconut aminos or fig balsamic.

Buen Provecho!