Find Joy in Mushrooms

Honestly, mushrooms are my favorite type of food. The texture, taste, and even feel of mushrooms gives me so much joy. Since it is almost the holiday, I wanted to correspond the food that gives me joy in my blog. Cheesy, but oh well.

In the book I am reading for this quarter, All New All Purpose Joy of Cooking, it provides so much information about mushrooms in general and different recipes you can make with mushrooms. However, in this blog, I will be talking about the different kinds of mushrooms and some tricks to use while cooking mushrooms.

"Mushrooms lend elegance and earthiness to a dish. While we are grateful for the abundance of cultivated small button mushrooms, wild mushrooms have considerably more character, and an assortment of them is available in specialty groceries and super markets" (Becker and Rombauer 383).

While shopping for mushrooms, you want to choose the mushrooms that are heavy in size, with dry, firm caps and stems-nothing damp or shriveled, no dark or soft spots, and all close to the same size. Mushrooms go tremendously well with cream, lemon, garlic, shallots, onions, cheese, fennel, fish, chicken, veal, peas, dill, chervil, parsley, tarragon, basil, oregano, and capers.

No doubt, in my opinion, I agree with this book about mushrooms being great and a wonderful food too eat. However, the book also provides a caution that needs to be acknowledged. "A number of poisonous forms of wild mushrooms, during various stages of their development, resemble edible forms" (Becker and Rombauer 384). This is also part of the importance of this blog. It is important to take the time to become familiar with the mushrooms you wish to pick.

Here are some mushrooms that are known to be good to eat:
1. Button or Commerial Mushrooms -- only buy the ones with closed caps
2. Porcini Mushrooms
3. Chanterelles Mushrooms
4. Creminis or Italian Browns
5. Enoki --good with broth
6. Enoki --good with salad or both
7. Morels Mushrooms
8. Oyster Mushrooms
9. Portbelos --useful in sautes
10. Shiitakes

Do you like mushrooms? Do you know the difference between your mushrooms and how to pick the right ones? What are some recipes you make with mushrooms?

Bombauer, Irma Von Starkloff. Joy Of Cooking / All New All Purpose. NY, NY: Scribner, 1997. Print.