Best Recipes for Cooking Mushrooms

Cooking for many is an art form that requires the greatest of skill and patience. The careful control of what ingredients to add in what quantity can only be carried out by a person who has a scientist’s love for precision. Gordon Ramsey is just the most famous of the numerous examples of chefs that have become an important part of popular culture, an indispensable part even. Humans love to eat food because food is our sustenance. Once food became a guarantee for a lot of people, the next step was to get the best possible kind of food. This is where taste, Michelin stars and the ambience of restaurants comes in.

Now that the statement that cooking food is an art form has been established, we have to deal with the next pertinent question. What to cook? Now, 50 years ago, this question would have been easy to answer. For a lot of people, answers like Steak or Bacon Wrapped Pork Tenderloin are what would have come first in their minds. However, today the landscape is quite different. People are much more conscious of their health now and you will not find a lot of people willing to eat non-organic options. This is definitely a step in the right direction, but we need to make sure that we do not need the heritage of taste that we have built up since the beginning of humanity. One of the best ways one can do that is through cooking mushrooms. Mushrooms have been the cornerstone of many cuisines around the world. This is particularly true for countries in the Far-East who have always integrated mushrooms into their food simply because there are so many of them around them. A mushroom grow kit like a blue oyster mushroom kit is a wonderful shortcut method for growing mushrooms.

Why Mushrooms?

In this new world order that is supposed to be dominated by more organic food options, why is the mantle being passed to mushrooms of all things? The reasons for that are extremely simple.

One of the biggest reasons why mushrooms have always been so popular is due to the fact that they have a taste that resembles meat. For people who want to decrease the consumption of meat in their diets due to a variety of reason, this is the best option for them. This also translates brilliantly into various recipes as well, since you can just replace the meat with the mushrooms, and you are good to go. Although it is pertinent to mention that there is a large calibration process that has to be undertaken which includes changing the amounts of ingredients in order to achieve a taste that can be considered similar to the previous one. Mushrooms’ taste also has a component of uniqueness to it. It is true that while mushrooms like blue oyster mushrooms have a taste that is very similar to meat, they have a certain added layer of top that gives them a unique feel. Many people consider mushrooms superior to meat solely due to its taste.

The health advantages of consuming mushrooms are simply numerous. These advantages include the strengthening of the immune system which is absolutely paramount in times when viruses are evolving by the day. Your immune system is the last line of defense against any intruders that might be invading your body.

Mushrooms like blue oyster mushrooms are known for their positive effects on heart health as well. They are extremely well-stocked with nourishing nutrients that can make sure that your daily intake of potassium is fulfilled. That is one example of many others as well.

There has been research that has proven that lion’s mane mushrooms can have a positive effect on mental health as well. They have been linked to higher motivation in life and thus greater productivity. In fact, lion’s mane mushrooms have been found to be effective in minimizing the effects of neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s as well. There are very few diseases that are as scary as something like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or Dementia is. We have all seen close relatives of ours go down the deep and dark part of degeneration of the brain. In many ways, they do not seem like the people we once knew. Their mental clocks are often stuck in a particular phase of time and many of them might not be able to recognize their own children. What is worse is that these diseases are extremely common, and most people have to contend with some sort of brain degeneration as they get older. The brain’s ability to make neural connections decreases as time goes on. Neural connections are literally the reason why we are able to learn things. Once this process starts to deteriorate, the patient essentially is frozen in a phase of time. It is one of the most harrowing things to go through and is quite disturbing seeing another person go through it as well. This is why you need to invest in consuming mushrooms like lion’s mane as they will eventually have an effect that you might not even be able to feel at first. However, at the back of the mind, they will be making sure that this process is delayed and stopped as much as possible.

Our world changes in the blink of an eye. The internet has made sure that the speed of the transfer of information is so fast that the only limit now is the ability of humans to perceive and understand it. Naturally, this means that more information is being flown into our brains than we can understand, and we compensate by spending less time processing information. While mental health issues are caused due to a whole variety of reasons that might be completely unrelated to the internet, there is a case to be made that says that the internet’s nature has a negative effect on our minds. Lion’s mane mushrooms are known to be able to counteract the mild symptoms of depression, anxiety and even a lack of focus. However, it must be noted that lion’s mane mushrooms can play the role of a contributor at best. If you have serious mental health issues, the best way of tackling and managing it is to talk to a mental health professional who will be able to apply their vast expertise and help you.

Mushroom Cooking Recipe

One of the most exciting things about cooking is that it teaches you how to construct a process that will always produce the most optimum results. You are able to build a knowledge base that lets you create a better recipe after repetition as you understand the effects of overusing and underusing ingredients. For a lot of people, cooking can be a daunting task as it requires a certain attention to detail and being able to perceive the passing of time with some accuracy. However, the good news is that cooking mushrooms is one of the easiest tasks in terms of cooking. Today, we will be exploring a very simply recipe that should be enough for most novices in order to build a good base.

Let’s take the example of a lion’s mane mushroom recipe. Lion’s mane mushrooms are one of the most popular types of mushrooms used for consumption. This is due to the fact that they are relatively easy to grow and are easily available throughout the world. There is a good chance that your local farmer’s market also has lion’s mane mushrooms available.

After buying the mushrooms or foraging for them. It is a good exercise to clean them. You cannot run them through running water as that can affect the turgidity of the mushrooms quite a lot. Take a clean cloth and run it under water. Now, using that wet cloth, you can clean the mushrooms. Make sure to be extremely thorough especially if you have gotten the mushrooms in the wild. Don’t apply too much force. There is the risk that the mushrooms might break off.

Now, once you have been completely satisfied by the level of cleaning, you can move on to the next step. Take the mushrooms and cut it up into smaller pieces. This is very important as that makes sure that the mushroom will be cooked evenly all across. Now, you can apply seasoning to the mushroom pieces. For beginners, this step is the trickiest. Don’t be disheartened if you don’t get it right the first time. You can even separate the mushrooms into batches and cook one batch first and see how it turns out. Overall, this is a pretty good way for you to get some practice into the art of seasoning.

Take a non-stick pan and add either olive oil or ghee to it. I personally prefer ghee because it has a much richer taste that can combine quite well with the savory taste of mushrooms. Heat the pan for a few minutes and add the cut up and seasoned mushrooms to it.

It is recommended to use medium heat here as it will give you plenty of time to react to the changes in the visuals of the mushrooms themselves which is very important. After a few minutes of frying, there should be a noticeable change in the color of the mushrooms as they turn darker and more brownish. If you like a crispier taste, you can still keep on frying the mushrooms.

Once that is done, you can take the pan off the heat. One of the best things about mushrooms is that they are extremely versatile. They can be added into dishes where they are the main attraction and into other dishes where they play more of a side role.

 So, this is a recipe for cooking mushrooms that is bound to not only be a great practice recipe for beginners but a quick-fire one for more experienced chefs.