How do you prepare mushrooms?

There is a domestic disagreement about whether they need peeling or not (or even washing). What does the hive mind reckon?

I’ve never peeled or washed mushrooms. I’ve flicked off big bits of dirt and not died yet.

Normally cut the bottom off where they have been grown in shite. Other than that, no washing, no peeling.

The big portobellos need peeling sometimes, but rarely have them.

Cut them.
Cook them.
Eat them.

That’s all.

How do you prepare mushrooms?

Open bin
Insert fungus
Cook some proper food instead

HTH

What mister p says.

Flashy, you animal.

Aye, I’ve been trimming the stalks then cooking them.

Mushrooms are proper food, you know…

Don’t peel or wash.

I prepared mine like this yesterday! 🙂

I used the chop and chuck everything in system! No technique or thought required! 😆

Take recipe that includes mushrooms.

And put that in the bin.

Get a proper cook book.

Only peel Portobellos if I’m roasting them.

All others, brush any obvious muck off and remove/trim the stalks, nothing more.

Never, ever wash them if you want them to cook properly (especially if frying).

If there’s bits of big turd on them then flick that off otherwise chop as required. If you want flash to eat them then price the punnet at £50 and he’ll declare them the food of gods.

Tea, smoke them or freeze then and consume at parties.

other than that , wipe them with a damp bit of kitchen roll

Wipe them with a bit of kitchen roll if necessary, don’t put water near them. And leave them in the sun for an hour before prep to up the vitamin D content.

The soil/compost that commercially grown mushrooms are grown in is apparently treated to be sterile. You could mix it in water and drink it and be fine.

No need to wash. Just brush off.

Wild mushrooms different story. Ok to wash but don’t soak. It’s a myth that you should never wash mushrooms and that they just absorb Water. Some, like girolles, need washed to get crap out of all the gills. They don’t abide water as easily as people say. If you doubt this just weigh some, wash them and weigh them again and you will see very little increase.

Peeling never necessary

Button mushrooms are a bit pointless* compared to proper wild ones, which just need slicing and whizzing round a hot pan with some garlic, olive oil and a bit of parsley.

*I’m a heathen tho and will eat them raw with bits of shite still on them

It’ll still leave gritty bits if you don’t get it all off. Sterile or not, soil isn’t nice to eat. Brush the big bits off, rinse under a tap if you want but keep the mushroom the right way up while you do (and you won’t need litre of water to do it a little trickle is enough).

I bet you guys don’t even take the shoots out of the middle of garlic before you eat it or cook with it 🙄

@howsyourdad1
You beat me to it.

I’d add: spend the first hour wishing you hadn’t eaten them, then the rest of the evening having the time of your life. And phoning friends up in the middle of the night to tell them how much you miss them – even if you saw the yesterday.

Brush off any detritus, slice as appropriate, cook in pan with butter until hot through, but still firm, eat with seasoning as desired. In an omelette, on toast…
Yum.
Much more of a food than liver or kidneys, they’re just awful…

You only need to take the middle shoot out of the garlic if it’s green.

Ok, call me a heathen but:
Why is the green shoot in garlic bad?
What does the water do to the mushroom?

hairspray & safety wire.

I like to wash shit off my food before eating it.

Mushrooms tend to soak up water, so washing them makes them more watery. They’ll ‘bleed’ a bit as it is, no need to add to it.

Peeling them is time intensive to no end whatsoever.

Trim the stalk and wipe any larger clumps of compost with kitchen roll/ tea towel.

Enjoy responsibly.

Ok, call me a heathen but:
Why is the green shoot in garlic bad?
What does the water do to the mushroom?

It can be bitter if it’s started to shoot. If you’ve let your garlic start to shoot then you need to ask why you haven’t used it earlier.

Enjoy responsibly

…and forage carefully

I peel bigger mushrooms (field/portabello) and lightly wash/scrub smaller mushrooms (bit of wet kitchen paper) and pat them dry after. Having had an unpleasant experience at a cafe involving a full English breakfast with some added mushroom shit (I thought it was a bit of the black pudding…) I’d rather not risk that again.

As a mushroom grower of some 40 years supplying supermarkets with 3.5 tonnes of organic mushrooms per week, I can tell you that there isn’t any reason to peel them, or wash them, just wipe them if they have any loose particles on them.

There is nothing on them to harm you and peeling them is just throwing good food away, in fact we in our family have never even wiped them.

Wipe, don’t peel.

* pick anything mushroom shaped outside
* clean
* fry
* spend three days feeling exceedingly ill

It’s nearly chanterelle season woo hoo 🙂
Might even go out tonight for a look!

And this is the currect implement for preparing them

As a mushroom grower of some 40 years…

Gotta love this place to usually always find an expert in the field of most topics.

OT but watched a fascinating doc on iplayer last week on insomnia, which included an experiment for insomniacs to take magic mushrooms. Can’t imagine the two being compatible but it seemed to work.

Never wash, never peel. Brush any substrate off before cooking.

Lately have been missing bacon so tried a ‘what’s in the cupboard’ take on the crispy king oyster mushroom.

First slice mushrooms lengthways 3-4mm thick. I used two cutting boards to achieve this. Two wooden BBQ skewers would do a similar job. Use flat of hand to compress mushroom body when slicing. *CAREFUL NOW*

I just tossed the buggers in a bit of olive oil, salt, pepper, smoked paprika and sugar.

Whack in oven on baking tray at 180 deg for about an hour turning once halfway thru. They need to be cooked until dehydrated to ‘leathery’ state. Remove from oven, toss in a little maple syrup.

Weirdly good. No joke, this is a former meat-eaters vegan dream come true. I used to est Morningstar bacon when veggie years ago but this is just another level of tasty and textured. Notes:
Need to swap smoked paprika for liquid smoke or actual smoker as is a little spicy. Not ‘bad’ spicy, but I’m now on a mission to get as close to perfect smoked/sweet bacony taste as possible. They’re quite unbelievably bacony as is, tbh.

Note – always prepare 2 or 3x what you think as they shrink to about a third of original size during cooking.

link to recipes and discussion

I’d never thought about it before staying in a Dorset B&B and watching a German couple carefully remove the stalks from their mushroom.

The logic was sound, but I think the dousing in fat and burning would have seen most bugs off.

If you’ve let your garlic start to shoot then you need to ask why you haven’t used it earlier.

The inside shoot goes bitter long before it’s visibly started to shoot outside.

You absolutely should wash them if they’re non-organically grown as they’re covered in all sorts of chems. Same for the rest of your veg.

Nobody does though, even though they put ‘wash before use’ on the package.

Peeling is daft as daft can be tho… 🙂

First the mushroonm industry has never put out ‘wash before use’ that is a supermarket stipulation for their labels.
Second if you went to a non organic mushroom farm you probably in nearly all cases could not find a single chemical used on the mushrooms, I for years didn’t use any directly onto the mushrooms before being certified organic.