#abominablecreeture

mushroomgay:

Cambridge, UK, May 2022

Chicken of the woods (Laetiporus sulphureus)

My absolute faves! The young lobes on the left became chicken nuggets of the woods with my flatmates (”I can’t believe they said they were making fancy flat dinner and it’s chicken nuggets”) and the older ones on the right became a lovely chicken pie with white wine, rosemary and thyme.

Yes! So, ones on the left are perfect - use in everything, nuggets especially are good and will wow meat eaters with how tender and delicious they are.

Ones on the right, what I’ll usually do is cut off the outer edge of the lobes - this part will still be tender and fryable, both as nugs, and sauteed in anything you’d pop mushrooms in, e.g.: curry, stirfry, topping mushroom soup, etc.

Then what I’ll do is cut off the woody stem part, the part closest to the tree - anything that feels more like cork than the softness of say, cooked chicken breast, when you poke it. This part I’ll compost.

Then the rest, the middle part, which is tender enough to eat but not to fry, I’ll put in something water-based, either a soup or pie, where they’ve got a chance to absorb water and become softer and more palatable.

The key to it is touch though - I’ve seen ones that look like that but feel far too tough, and I’ve seen ones that look older that still feel tender enough to eat in a soup or pie. When I squeeze a lobe between my fingers, I’m looking for something at least as soft as a cooked chicken breast (I can’t think of a better comparison right now!)