Category: mushrooms

Wild Mushroom and Bison Stew

Serve this robust and deeply flavorful mushroom stew over mashed root vegetables for a simple, warming autumn supper. While wild mushrooms, such as chanterelle and boletes, give the stew an extraordinary, rich flavor, you’ll find that it’s equally good when made with the button mushrooms you can find at your local grocery store. If you…


Wild Mushroom Butter

Wild mushrooms are delicious but can be hard to come by, and this recipe makes a little go a long way. Boletes, chanterelle, and oyster mushrooms are a natural fit, but you might also use the woodsy Hawk’s wings or vibrant red lobster mushrooms. If you can’t find wild mushrooms, cultivated varieties from any grocery…


Wild Mushroom Soup

Mushrooms have a deep savory flavor that blends beautifully with thyme and cream. If you can’t find wild mushrooms, you can use cultivated mushrooms. The trick is to use a variety of them, which gives the soup its best flavor. Serves 6 2 tablespoons butter 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil 1 medium shallot, coarsely…


How Lion’s Mane Mushroom Benefits Your Brain

Lion’s mane is one of nature’s gifts to your nervous system. It’s the only mushroom possessing not one but two potent nerve growth factors, showing potential benefits for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment, multiple sclerosis, leg cramps, anxiety, and more. Lion’s mane mushroom has been used medicinally in Asia for centuries, but for…


The Morels Have Stories

At the farmers markets of the West, it’s common to find morel mushrooms for sale in little baskets. They look gnomish, with honeycomb-like caps atop stubby stalks, each individual with a slightly different shape and posture. Wild to the core, this stubborn species of fungus has refused all efforts at domestication and only grows where it…


Why Mushrooms Increase Longevity

A recently published literature review found that eating 18 grams of any type of mushroom contributes to reducing your potential risk of cancer. Mushrooms aren’t plants or animals. They are umbrella-shaped fruiting bodies of a fungus that typically grows above ground. Mushrooms produce millions of microscopic spores that are spread by animals or the wind. Once…


Disused Underground Parking Lot Repurposed as Organic Mushroom Farm Under Streets of Paris

A dormant underground parking lot in Paris has found new purpose serving as a farm for growing organic fungi. The low-light produce is then sold to local organic grocery stores, shortening the distance from farm to table a step further. “La Caverne,” or “The Cave,” is one of three converted subterranean spaces founded together by agronomist…


Orzotto ai Funghi (Mushroom Barley Risotto)

Although rice is the grain of choice for risotto, you can also find recipes that use farro or barley, called orzo in Italian (not to be confused with orzo pasta). Orzotto, made with pearl barley, is common in Trentino Alto Adige, a region in the North of Italy. It’s especially creamy, while at the same…


Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms

These stuffed portobello “tartlets” are endlessly versatile, as roasted portobello caps are the perfect vessels for all sorts of toppings. I have stuffed them with creamy scrambled eggs for an elegant brunch, tomato sauce and mozzarella for a take on pizza, and ground veal and béchamel for an elegant first course. In this recipe, I…


The Magic of Mushrooms

From humble, mild white buttons to wild, woodsy chanterelles, hearty portobellos to delicate morels, mushrooms come in myriad shapes, forms, flavors, and textures. Foraging for wild mushrooms usually peaks in the fall and spring, but most commercially grown varieties are abundant all year round. Mushrooms are naturally rich in umami, making them delicious on their…