[Sca-cooks] Fungi

[Phil Troy/ G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Robin Carroll-Mann:
>If I wanted to makes a truffle dish (and did not want to take out a second
>mortgage), would it be reasonable to use mushrooms flavored with some
>truffle oil?  If so, what kind of mushrooms would work best?

That's a toughie. While it's true that the best-known Perigord black 
or Piedmontese or Umbrian white truffles are quite expensive, they're 
not the only truffles eaten in human history, very possibly not what 
the writers of some period truffle recipes intended to be used, and 
not the only truffle options available to the American truffle 
enthusiast. That said, though, commercially available American 
truffles (like the white ones from Oregon, say) seemed to have a 
brief day in the sun, and are now much harder to find than they had 
been even a few years ago (drought conditions?). It would be cool to 
experiment with those, but at the moment it seems like the only 
option for the non-wealthy is to hunt them yourself, which opens up a 
whole different set of problems.

So. Mushrooms. They're somewhat different in both flavor and texture 
from truffles, even though they're related fungi. Truffles are 
supposed, when in good shape, to be quite firm, firm enough to be 
grated like parmigiano-reggiano cheese, say, or a lightly cooked 
carrot. The flavor difference I can't easily describe except to say 
there is one. The only truffles I've eaten in a form and quantity 
where you could easily pick out the truffle flavor, have been white 
ones, and those have been nutty-sweet, slightly tangy in a way I 
associate with turnips or raw mushrooms, and with a very slight 
garlic or even asafeotida undertone, in addition to a deep richness.

I think maybe the kind of richness and flavor a truffle has is going 
to be hard to find in a mushroom without a rather aggressive flavor 
of its own, if you know what I mean, so substituting something close 
is going to be more like substituting mushrooms-and-truffles for 
truffles.

I think maybe fresh shiitakes might be your best bet, or fresh 
cep/porcinis, with truffle oil. You need something firm and rich, but 
not powerfully mushroomy, so something like morels I wouldn't 
recommend.

Maybe you could share your recipe, and we could get a better idea of 
how best to substitute.

Once upon a time, I worked for a chef who used to begin every dinner 
service with a fresh bottle of white truffle oil, and it was part of 
my job to be sure he had a fresh, full, just-opened bottle every day 
at around 5:30 PM. And every evening he would use maybe 2/3 to 3/4 of 
it. When I asked him what I should do with the previous day's bottle, 
he never clearly stated that I should throw it out, he always just 
said, "Get rid of it and get me a fresh bottle." [This was Mark May, 
of the deadly venison civey, who went on to open a restaurant called 
May Oui, and soon thereafter vanished from the Earth, a broken man.]

So I would dispose of the 6-ounce bottle in the nearest receptacle I 
deemed appropriate for the job: my pants pocket. It turns out truffle 
oil is _really_ good injected into the meat of a raw turkey before 
roasting...

Adamantius