Category Archives: Mushroom

Free mushrooms from Gourmet Mushrooms, Inc!

In a previous post, I talked about my trip to Santa Rosa in Sonoma County to give a talk to the Sonoma County Mycological Association on my research on fungal diversity in Yosemite. While there, I made a connection with Justin Reyes, who works for Gourmet Mushrooms Inc. Justin kindly sent me some mushrooms for me to cook with! I was super excited to try out some new mushroom themed recipes, and I cooked 3 mushroom themed feasts featuring these mushrooms. Last Wednesday night, I made mushroom lasagna with the Velvet Pioppini and the Trumpet Royale mushrooms for 5 of my girl friends. Thursday night, I made an epically good barbequed Maitake Frondosa with Mee Goreng for my friends Meera and Judy, who enthusiastically gobbled it up. With the brown clamshells I found a delicious sounding recipe for marinated mushrooms with walnut and tahini yogurt in Yotam Ottolenghi’s Plenty. Look forward to some awesome mushroom filled posts :) Here is some mushroom photography for you to enjoy!

Trumpet royale:

2014-04-05 15.10.34

Brown clamshell AKA shimeji:

Brown clamshell mushrooms

Velvet Pioppini:

Velvet Pioppini

Maitake Frondosa:

A note on their ecology:

Since I’m a mycologist, I can’t help but take a minute to comment on their ecology. I’m actually not familiar with any of these mushrooms and have never cooked with any of them before. The reason for this is that I was trained to identify California mushrooms, and none of these mushrooms are native to California. As their names suggest, Pioppini are Italian and the other three originate in Asia. Another reason that I’m not as familiar with these particular mushrooms is that they are all cultivated mushrooms, and they are saprophytic, which means that their ecological role is to decompose dead material and recycle nutrients. This environment is relatively easy to reproduce in culture and thus saprotrophs are readily cultivated. I study ectomycorrhizal fungi, which are mutualistically associated with trees, and thus have to be foraged in the wild order for us to find them since we can’t readily reproduce the environment of a tree in culture. We need wild in tact forests in order to find the prized edible ectomycorrhizal mushrooms such as chanterelles, porcinis, and truffles. So just another reason in favor of forest conservation :)

Can’t wait to tell you all about my three mushroom themed feasts!

The Fungi Forager! AKA my video premier!

Has reading my blog inspired an unknown interest in mushroom foraging? Do you yearn to uncover the secrets of the hunt? Well look no further, as some secrets are about to be revealed in my video premier!

A bit of explanation: I’m currently teaching a class to UC Berkeley undergrads called Environmental Issues, and one of the grad students that I teach with is a Journalism student. Courtney has to make news segments for one of her journalism classes, so when she heard about my blog she asked me if she could do a news segment featuring me, and of course, I gladly accepted :) Courtney visited me in my lab and then we foraged for mushrooms on UC Berkeley’s campus, which is where I found the porcinis that I blogged about in a previous post. Courtney is known for her quirky news segments on off the beaten path topics, so of course we were a natural pairing! Courtney had to cut a 3 minute news segment from the 3-4 hours that she spent with me – what she came up with is a pretty hilarious and dramatic rendition of my mushroom foraging adventure. This is pretty embarrassing but luckily I’m very good at being made fun of (comes with years of practice from growing up as the youngest with 3 older sisters to tease me) so here you go, enjoy my video premier!

Check out the 3 minute news segment on the Fungi Forager: http://vimeo.com/89270562

Picking porcinis on UC Berkeley’s campus

Porcini and leek frittata with mozzarella cheese

I went rock climbing for the second time ever last week and I swear I thought my arms were going to fall off as I started cutting into the porcini. I was soo thankful that I had cleaned and cut the leeks the day before. Leeks are super dirty so you have to be really careful and clean them really well. I ended up plugging my sink and filling it with water and slicing up the leeks and letting them soak in the sink overnight on Sunday night. Then when I woke up Monday morning I drained the sink, put the leeks in a colander and rinsed them off again before sticking them in a tupperware in the fridge so they would be ready later in the week. As I said, my arms hurt so badly from rock climbing so I was really thankful for the foresight!

I was starving after rock climbing for nearly 3 hours and couldn’t wait to get the porcinis in the pan although my arms were stinging while I held the knife. So my cutting of the porcinis was not as precise and beautiful as in the previous post, but unfortunately you will not be able to see the photo-documentation of this as I accidentally left the memory card outside of my camera while I was preparing this meal so all of the pictures that I thought I had taken do not exist! Drat! At least I got a beautiful picture of the finished product :)

Something to keep in mind is that the Boletus barrowsii turns a bit purple after cutting it and it seems a bit alarming when cooking them and they start to turn purple, but I ate them on Sunday night and I’m still alive :) To speed things up I heated up two pans with olive oil, filled one with leeks and the other with porcinis, and left them to saute for a long time while I worked on writing this. You really want to just leave them alone for a while so they cook enough and get nice and browned. Once the leeks were well cooked, I decided to toss in some fresh thyme that I had sitting in my fridge leftover from one of my recipes from last week. Then I cracked 8 eggs, added salt, pepper, and oregano, and then whisked it really well before pouring the eggs over the leeks. Next, I added the browned porcinis and let it set up in the pan a bit. At that point I realized that I had completely forgotten to preheat the oven so I turned it on and let the eggs sit on the counter while it heated up – it’s just a simple frittata so I figured it should be fine! I also remembered that I had 8 oz of fresh mozzarella in my fridge and I only needed 4 oz for my next recipe so I went ahead and chopped that up and added it to the frittata for good measure. My friend and former California Mushrooms student Claire (featured in this post) came over to enjoy the frittata with me and she loved it! This turned out to be a super simple and filling meal that worked great as leftovers throughout the week. It also tasted really delicious when accompanied by the sorrel sauce that will be featured in the next post!

Porcini and leek frittata

Roasted butternut squash & red onion with tahini & za’atar with couscous and tomato and onion, asparagus, and sauteed porcinis

I know that you have all been waiting with baited breath to see what I’ve done with my porcini haul. I’ve made a porcini and leek frittata which I will feature in a later post, and today I’m going to tell you about one of the best meals I’ve ever cooked in my life. It was so incredibly amazing that all I wanted to do this week was stay home from work and cook all day and eat my food. This was my second time cooking this butternut squash dish – the first time I made it was that fateful night before Christmas where I discovered Jerusalem at my friend Meera’s house. This dish is freaking delicious. It is not that complicated but it is so insanely flavorful and fulfilling that I think you have to go home and cook it like right now! The hardest part of cooking this dish is cutting up the butternut squash, which admittedly, requires guns. This recipe can be found on pg. 36 of Jerusalem and is featured online here and on another Ottolenghi admirer’s blog here. Before embarking on the arduous task of cubing the squash, remember to preheat your oven to 475 degrees F.

Cubed butternut squash

After cubing the squash, you can congratulate yourself, because the hardest part is now over! Next roughly slice 2 red onions and add them to the squash, then add 3.5 tbsp of olive oil and some salt and pepper before sticking it in the oven for 40 minutes.

Butternut squash with red onions

While it’s in the oven you can make the tahini sauce, which is super simple. Whisk together 3.5 tbsp light tahini paste, 2 tbsp water, 1 small crushed garlic clove, and 1/4 tsp salt.

Ingredients for tahini sauce

You can also saute the pine nuts in 1.5 tsp olive oil with 0.5 tsp salt for 2 minutes. Once they are golden brown, remove them from heat and transfer them to a small bowl while you wait for the squash. After 40 minutes, the squash and onions should be nice and soft.

Roasted butternut squash and red onions with olive oil, salt, and pepper

Once it’s cooled down a bit, toss the squash and onions with the tahini sauce, add in the pine nuts with their oil, and top with 1 tbsp za’atar. This dish is just so so good. I really cannot emphasize enough how much I love this dish!

Roasted butternut squash & red onions with tahini & za’atar

I decided to try my hand again at the couscous with tomato and onion that I made the other night with my friend Dan and featured here.

Couscous with tomatoes and onion in pan

It accompanied the butternut squash & red onions with tahini dish really well and I have to say I was really pleased with myself that I managed to get the crust right this time :) I got a really crispy crust on the edge (I just had to let it sit in the pan a bit longer) and I managed to flip it over onto the plate completely in tact! I didn’t spill any couscous on the floor this time! The only plate that I had that was large enough for this task was a orange flower platter that I had from the 99 cents store when I first started grad school. Perhaps not my classiest dish, but it was big enough that I got the couscous flipped onto it without dropping any, so it definitely did the job. I am very proud of this dish :) Definitely proof that practice makes perfect!

Couscous with tomato and onion

I know what you are thinking – where are the mushrooms? Don’t worry – I definitely made them! They were so meaty and delicious and added so much depth to the experience of this meal. Asparagus is in season now and was on sale at the Berkeley bowl so I added that to my pan with with the mushrooms.

Sauteed porcinis

Here’s my crispy couscous with the asparagus and porcinis.

Sauteed porcinis and asparagus with crispy couscous

How beautiful do those porcinis look? This is how you want them – nice and browned.

Porcinis with asparagus and couscous

Ok, let’s get a close up of my star ingredient.

Sautteed porcinis

And here is the completed meal! My friend Simone, who is another biology graduate student and a talented artist as well who makes really cool biological themed mythical paintings, came over to enjoy the meal with me. Maybe I can convince Simone to make some beautiful mushroom themed paintings for me!

Roasted butternut squash & red onions with tahini & za’atar with couscous, tomato and onion, and sauteed porcinis and asparagus

porcini feast!

So yesterday I drove nearly 4 hours and hiked for over 5 hours and while I had tons of fun and saw tons of mushrooms – I found no chanterelles or porcinis. But today, sticking around campus and barely moving a few hundred feet from my house, I found a whole boat load of porcinis!! Go figure. Mushroom hunting is a fickle beast – but it does make finding the best edibles that much more exciting. And eating mushrooms that you hunted yourself – it just can’t be beat! I’ve been on a quest to find porcinis all year since I’ve never found them before – so today was super exciting :) While it wasn’t the king bolete Boletus edulis, it was still a delicious choice edible in the same group, Boletus barrowsii. Here’s my nifty and professional looking UC Berkeley Mycology basket filled with them!
Boletus barrowsii So beyond finding a delicious choice edible that had been on my mushroom bucket lease, today was also exciting because I was being filmed for a news segment on urban foraging. I am currently teaching a course at Berkeley called Environmental Issues, and one of the graduate students that I teach with is a journalist, and she decided to do a story featuring yours truly :) So you will get a chance to see my mushroom hunting in action on the news! Keep posted for the video link! Tons of boletes! I was so lucky to find so many mushrooms and in such good condition! They were super clean and not buggy at all – this is super lucky as boletes can sometimes be filled with maggots – yuck! So you have to be careful and cut off the bottom of the stem and check for maggots. Mine are super clean – no sign of bugs at all! super clean boletes I cut off the bottom of the stems with all the dirt and threw that in the trash and then I gave them a quick rinse in the sink and rubbed off the dirt, then I let them dry a bit on a towel. Boletus barrowsii caps How gorgeous are these mushrooms? Boletus barrowsii cleaned up So the trick with porcinis is that you have to slice them up and cook them really well. You want to make sure they are cooked all the way through and nice and browned and crispy. Most people don’t like to eat the tubes so it’s best to pull them off. Luckily they tear off really easily. Slice them up thin, heat up a pan with butter or oil, and let them simmer for a while. Go do something else while they are simmering and stay distracted because they need to stay untouched and cooking for longer than you probably think. Wait til they start to get nice and brown. sauteeing porcinis They are super meaty and flavorful mushrooms. They would work really well in an omelet, in a sandwich with mozzarella and pesto, in a pasta..or as the main event! Get ready for lots of recipes featuring these delicious mushrooms this week :)

mushroom hunting!!

So it rained tons in the bay area last week and as promised – I went mushroom hunting! There were mushrooms!! Tons of them!!!! Mushroom hunting is analagous to a treasure hunt – you are hiking along and then you spot one and it elicits a primordial joy that shoots adrenaline through your veins. I took my friend Rachael, who I’ve been friends with since we met at sleepaway camp nearly 2 decades ago, to Point Reyes National Seashore for an epic hike and hunting adventure. Rachael is a line cook at Michael Mina in SF and has been getting more into foraging for greens for her garnishes and Pt Reyes is one of the only places in the bay area where foraging is legal. My advisor told me about a great hike down the bayview trail, which we expected to be about 6 miles, but we ended up going nearly 9 miles overall! We hiked down the bayview trail to the muddy hollow trail to the bucklin trail, which was about 6 miles, and then when we finally got to the top of the ridge we realized we still had 2.6 miles to hike down the inverness ridge trail to get back to our car! Luckily there were gorgeous expansive views of the bay from the ridge. While we didn’t find many choice edibles on the hike, we found tons of beautiful and diverse mushrooms, and Rachael really caught the mushroom hunting spirit :) She kept swearing at the deceptive rocks and leaves that faked her out for mushrooms – the sign of a true mushroom fanatic :)

super cool Coprinus comatus that came up to my thigh!

Saw a couple of newts crossing the trail on the hike – they are so cute! We also saw a bunny at one point.

Cute newt crossing the trail

First choice edible!

Finally an edible – Coprinus comatus – the shaggy mane!

Wow there was a lot of uphill on this hike – definitely a good bun workout!

Tons of trekking up hill

But the views from the top of the ridge were worth it :)

Gorgeous views on top of inverness ridge

How beautiful is our state flower?

California poppies!

Amazing Amanita franchetii

A man hiking the opposite direction as us was very concerned when he saw us stopping to take pictures of the Amanitas – he said don’t touch! poison! For the record, you cannot get hurt from touching mushrooms! Even poisonous ones!

Tons of Amanita franchetii were out!

The Lactarius were out in super abundance too!

Lactarius – these ones exude milky latex!

These were everywhere!

Cool wavy cap of a Rhodocollybia

More Amanitas!

Amanita pachylcolea

There were giant Suillus pugens the size of Rachael’s hand everywhere!

more Amanitas poking their heads out of the duff

Most people don’t know that a lot of mycorrhizal mushrooms (mutualistically associated with tree roots) aren’t mushrooms at all – they are more like crusts – like these Thelephoras which are the most abundant symbionts of trees in Pt Reyes!

Bet you didn’t know this was a mushroom! Thelephora terrestris – most common ectomycorrhizal fungus in Pt Reyes!

They are easy to pass by without noticing but I think they are rather cute, don’t you?

Thelephora terrestris

These are actually edible too but I’ve never tried them – I just think they are super pretty to look at!

Gorgeous lilac Laccaria amethysteo-occidentalis

Bet you didn’t know that mushrooms came in this many colors!

Gorgeous red gills of a Dermocybe

How pretty are these?

Happy hunting!

Sonoma county mushrooms and wine tasting

So I was invited to give a talk to the Sonoma County Mycological Association on Thursday night. I spoke to them about my research on fungal diversity in Yosemite National Park. Here is the little blurb about me on their website. There are so many mushroom lovers in the bay area you wouldn’t believe it! In October I spoke at the Fungus Federation of Santa Cruz and the Bay Area Mycological Society, and this February I spoke at SOMA. People in the bay area really love their mushrooms, and there are so many truly talented amateur mycologists! While my research isn’t on mushrooms per se, I did my best to make the talk fun and accessible to all and entertaining for the full hour that they gave me.

Me showing off some winter chanterelles

The people at SOMA were super engaged and asked tons of good questions and it was super fun to speak with them! I was very energized about my project after speaking with the people at SOMA :) However, rather than rush back to the lab thursday night and drive in the dark, I figured that as long as I had made the trek to Santa Rosa to give the talk, I might as well take the day off on friday and enjoy the fruits of Sonoma County on Friday. After all, we wouldn’t have wine without my favorite fungus, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, which is of course responsible for wine, beer, bread, cheese…basically all the good things in life!

The president of SOMA graciously gave me a long list of recommendations for places to wine taste in Sonoma County, which undoubtedly would keep me occupied for many weekend wine tasting adventures. Feeling a bit overwhelmed by my options, I decided to ask the front desk at my hotel and stop at vineyards located on my way home to Berkeley. Being a poor grad student, I ended up going to the vineyards that the hotel gave me free passes for, and I must say; I was not disappointed!

Vineyards in Sonoma county. How lucky am I to live in northern California??

How gorgeous are these vineyards?? Man it was a beautiful day in Sonoma county – not to gloat too much to my friends inundated in snow on the east coast – but you should definitely come visit me here :) I stopped in at Kenwood winery first, as it was the closest to my hotel in Santa Rosa. The people were a bit surprised to see a lone wine taster, but honestly I think it served me well visiting places on my own. I got to talk a lot with the people pouring the wine at the vineyards, got insider information on new places to visit, and probably got more free pours this way :) Here is the friendly wine pourer at the Kenwood winery.

Kenwood winery

As I pulled out of the Kenwood winery I noticed an olive oil store, so I decided to stop by for a taste.

Olive oil? Yes, please!

They had some delicious mushroom themed oils such as truffle oil and porcini oil, which were tasty, but I was actually inspired to buy some delicious balsamic vinegar. Who wants to bring some nice crusty bread to my house and dip it in my balsamic vinegar with me?

The olive oil and vinegar tasting got my taste buds going so I decided to stop for lunch at Cafe Cetti before continuing on to the vineyards. I figured having an entire pizza in my car was a good idea to get me through all the wine stops. And indeed, it served me well throughout the day :)

Artichoke heart pizza

So after Kenwood I continued on Highway 12 and stopped into Deerfield, which is known for its wine caves. I stopped in and checked out the wine caves, which were super cool! However, it was too crowded and I didn’t have a free coupon, so I stepped out without tasting any wine.

wine caves!

Next I continued on to BR Cohn, which was an absolutely stunning winery with a beautifully situated tasting room up on a slight hill.

Wines at BR Cohn

So much wine…so little time…

Wines at BR Cohn

I started off with a Sauvignon blanc, and then continued with the reds that they are famous for. I enjoyed the Barbera and the Cabernet Sauvignon immensely. Don’t they have the cutest glasses there?

BR Cohn

I met some nice ladies at BR Cohn who were visiting from Seattle and told me that I had to go to Valley of the Moon winery.

vineyards at Valley of the Moon

This was definitely my favorite stop in Sonoma. They had absolutely delicious wine and I surprised myself by buying 2 bottles! I bought a Rosato Di Sangiovese and a Pinot blanc. I didn’t even think that I liked a Rose very much, but this one was delicious. The Pinot blanc was also super flavorful and fruity. Now I just need an occasion to drink them! The wine pourer found out that I forage for mushrooms and got super excited. He is starting a kitchen at Valley of the Moon – who knows, maybe one day we will forage together!

Valley of the Moon Winery

My last stop was at Benzinger, which is a biodynamic winery. They compost everything, grow plants that foster pollinators and predators of insect pests, and have goats to eat cover crop and fertilizer with their manure. More wineries should be like them! They had a Sauvignon blanc that was like nothing I’d ever tried before, and of course, I had to buy it :) It was so delightful and flavorful and smelled like flowers and fruit and was just super unique.

I feel pretty accomplished hitting up 4 wineries in a single day, but there are countless more that were recommended to me. I especially hear that Healdsburg and Dry Creek Valley Road are good. Who wants to plan a trip with me :) ?

On Tuesday January 28, I made the mushroom and herb polenta from Plenty (recipe found here). While it’s been super dry and there are no mushrooms to forage, I figure I can always forage in the mushroom aisle at Monterey markets! It also finally gave me an opportunity to use the truffle oil that I bought at the MSSF fungus fair up at the Lawrence Berkeley Hall of Science several years ago. This dish is super rich and would be partnered really well with a simple light arugula and tomato salad or a nice crusty baguette. We used a combination of cremini, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms for this polenta. Chervil is apparently just french parsley, but I used regular parsley and it seemed to work just fine! This was also my first time using Taleggio, which is a very creamy and rich soft cheese.

This meal came out super delicious!

with the sauteed mushrooms on it, hot out of the oven!

I finally got a great opportunity to use the mushroom dish towel that my mom bought for me :)

mushroom and herb polenta on mushroom dish towel!

trip to the redwoods followed by a wild mushroom feast!

Ever since moving to Berkeley in 2010 and starting to work in the redwoods near Marin county and Big Sur, I had been wanting to check out the big redwoods up north. In mid December my friend Claire and I took a trip up north to see the big redwoods in Del Norte and Humboldt counties. Claire is from Oregon so we drove up the 5 from Berkeley to Oregon and what drive up to Oregon is complete without checking out Weed, California?

The Weed Store in Weed, California

Wow which one of these delightful t-shirts should I buy for mom?

So after our brief stop in Weed, where surprisingly what I ended up buying was some beautiful artwork of a photo of Mt. Shasta, we continued to Oregon where we spent a lovely evening playing Cards Against Humanity with Claire’s family. The next day we checked out the redwoods Jedediah Smith Redwood State, which were stunning.

How beautiful and amazing are redwoods?

Claire next to a really big redwood

Claire and some cute decomposer fungi

I like to get into hollowed out redwoods

Yes, I really enjoy this :)

How adorable is this Hygrocybe?

and how cute are these Hypholomas?

Don’t eat these unless you want to be vomiting all night, but how gorgeous is an Amanita muscaria?

We had an excellent day hiking around in Jedediah. The redwoods up that far north in Del Norte County in California are absolutely unparalleled. Next we continued down the coast to Humboldt county, and what trip to Humboldt is complete without a visit to the Lost Coast Brewery?

Enjoying the beer flight at the Lost Coast brewery

Thanks to some tips from my mycology buddy Jessie Uehling, we discovered an epically beautiful and legal place to mushroom hunt in Humboldt!

The light through these conifers was just too much – I didn’t want to leave!

If you didn’t like mushrooms before, I bet you can’t deny how charming these Laccarias are, right?

Bet you didn’t know that mushrooms came shaped like corals? These clavulinas are so pretty.

Mushroom selfie!!

and finally ! the mother lode! Winter chanterelles!

posing with my finds :)

Ooh what’s that there hiding in the mud/grass?

Is it a giant Hydnum repandum??

Let’s check underneath to make sure – yes, I see teeth – yes, mushrooms have teeth sometimes, how cool is that?

So super excited to be coming home with chanterelles (Cantharellus) and hedgehog mushrooms (Hydnum) we returned to Berkeley with our treasures in tow.

Here are the 2 species of chanterelles and 2 species of hedgehog mushrooms after I washed and cut them. It was a little extra work washing and removing all the leaves and duff, but totally worth it :)

wild mushrooms collected from the redwood forests: two species of chanterelles and two species of hedgehogs

My first ever risotto – wild mushrooms with onions, herbs, and parmesan – super tasty!

wild mushroom risotto with onions, parmesan, and foraged mushrooms

fungi foodie

The world is your oyster mushroom!