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Maitake Mushroom Recipes

30lb-miatake.JPG (48501 bytes)Maitake is an extremely versatile mushroom in the kitchen. A friend from Thailand uses it (cooked) in literally everything from soups to salads. An Italian chef I know uses it in breads, pressed into focaccia, on pizza and in main dishes as a sauce flavoring and in lasagna. I've even had it ground up in a food processor and made into mushroom pesto, served on crusty bread or spooned over pasta. It deep fries well, breaded with Italian seasonings or in tempera. To sum it up it has worked well in every dish I've ever seen it used in, its firm texture and woodsy flavor holding up to any style of cooking without ever becoming an overpowering flavor. What's nice about it is if you find enough -- like the thirty or so pound Maitake I'm holding in this picture -- you'll have plenty to try your favorite mushroom recipe with Maitake in stead of white button mushrooms. Here's a list of cooking ideas and a few recipes:

Italian Style:

Maitake Mushroom Pesto
Chop Maitake in a food processor, saut on medium heat (without oil) until the water in the fresh mushrooms is released, stir in some olive oil, a little garlic and salt an pepper to taste. Some fresh parsley is nice too.

Uses For Maitake Mushroom Pesto: Over pasta with grated cheese, on toasted bread or garlic bread as an appetizer, sprinkled on pizza, rolled up in a pizza dough with grated mozzarella to make a mushroom roll (cook about 25 minutes at 350*).

Also: Try adding chunks of Maitake to any Italian style soups or sauces.

Thai Style:

Add to soups, I.E. Cook sliced and seeded Bitter Melon in chicken broth with Maitake, finish with shrimp or chicken. Add chili paste or Thai soup base to several cups of water and cook with mushrooms. Add fine scallion rings, cilantro, soy sauce to taste. whisk a little milk and salt with an egg and make a very thin omelet. Transfer the omelet to a cutting board and slice it into long thin "egg noodles." Add them to the soup and serve.

Mushroom Salad: Souphet (Thai Mushroom Salad)

Also: Add to curry dishes or slice finely and add to Tod Mon Goon (Thai shrimp sausages)

Here are some other ideas:

Try substituting Maitake for Morels in this recipe:
Homemade Pasta With Morel Mushroom Cream Sauce

Make a Bchamel sauce and add sauted Maitake, serve over pasta.

Here's a more American style "salad" recipe - Hen of the Woods Salad

ENJOY! - Roy Reehil

Maitake Main Page | More Maitake Pictures and Info
Cooking and Storing Hen of the Woods


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