mushrooms (was Re: [Sca-cooks] Playing around in the kitchen.)

[Jeff Gedney]

>    I always understood that you don't wash mushrooms because they absorb
>    water, unless you're going to be cooking them in something liquid like
>    soup or stew. Then there's my mother, who always insisted that you must
>    wash the mushrooms.

I saw Alton Brown put the kabosh on the "Washing adds water" hoakum.
He took on pound of mushrooms washed them in a colander and dried them with
a towel.
The amount of weight (and therefore water) they gained was insignificant.
The equivalent of less than a third of a teaspoon of water in a pound of
mushrooms.

I wash my mushrooms these days and have noticed no change in the overall
quality of my product.

Just dry the mushrooms with a quick wipe of a paper towel.

(most commercial mushrooms are grown in a sterile medium, and the black
stuff wont kill you, anyway)


Brandu