Resources and Reflections

Matsutake Recipe

William Rubel
Author and Cook Specializing in Traditional Cooking

This recipe for matsutake soup from the Kunming Hotel, Kunming, China, demonstrates how one can, as a cook, step back and let the mushroom speak for itself. There are mushrooms that need us, the cook, to exert ourselves on their behalf — but many of the greatest mushrooms are best handled the least and this is certainly true of the great pine mushroom (Tricholoma matsuke). In Yunnan the mushroom is called sunron. It combines a rare package of a sweet odor, delicate taste, crisp texture, and beautiful shape. No oil is used in this soup — and it is the opinion of the Kunming Hotel chefs that oil must never be used with matsutake because, in their opinion, oil smothers the pine flavor of the mushroom. Thus, at the heart of this recipe is an approach to the matstuake that says – let the mushroom reveal itself through its own breath. The stock for this soup is lightly salted water in which the mushroom is boiled and at the last minute joined by cilantro.

A related matsutake—Tricholoma magnivelare — grows in North America. Its cap is browner (NB not true, see Hugh Smith photo above) than Tricholma matsutake, but it is also a fine mushroom.

Ingredients: Water, salt, matsutake mushrooms, thinly sliced, and cilantro, coarsely shopped. For each portion of soup include a moderate handful of mushrooms and a small handful of cilantro.

Instructions Make a stock of lightly salted water by adding a little salt, tasting, adding a little more, tasting until you are pleased with the taste. Then add a little white pepper.

Add thinly sliced matsutake and bring to a rolling boil. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes at a full boil. Add rough chopped cilantro. As soon as the cilantro wilts remove from the heat and serve.

And finally, an excerpt for an excellent article with several recipies in the Seattle PI

Fantastic Forage: Wild matsutake mushrooms

By HSIAO-CHING CHOU
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOOD WRITER

Wild matsutakes deliver the season of chestnuts and gingko, persimmons and the new rice crop. The pine (matsu) mushroom (take), for the Japanese, inspires excitement for summer’s wane into fall, and triggers thoughts of savoring its pungent flavor. It is said that one cooks the matsutake until one can eat the aroma.

In that regard, the matsutake resembles the truffle, which lends its perfume to any preparation it encounters. A broth with several slices of a pine mushroom would be served in a lidded bowl or pot, for example, so that the scent of earthy pine with a tinge of cinnamon swirls within the container until it is finally released.

		Mike Urban / P-I
	Takemi Sugiyama collects Matsutaki mushrooms in the Cascades.

The season for matsutakes in the Northwest has begun and there has been a notable abundance of these mushrooms this year. Local foragers say they have never seen such a profusion, which has caused behavior so rarely exhibited: Hunters, like zucchini growers, are enthusiastically sharing their bounty instead of hoarding it.

At local farmers markets, professional foragers have stacks of bins brimming with matsutakes, which are selling for about $8 to $14 per pound. Restaurants are featuring the mushroom sauteed, steamed, simmered, batter-fried, grilled. Shiro’s sushi bar presents matsutakes in chawan mushi (steamed egg custard), dobin mushi (broth), tempura and sushi.

“These are real expensive in Japan,” says owner Shiro Kashiba, with reverence in his voice. “We’re real lucky here.”

Last week, Union restaurant served seared venison medallions with sliced matsutake in red wine with shallots. Oceanaire is shaving matsutakes over salads.

Matsutakes are meaty like porcinis and portobellos. The large ones have steaklike caps and thick stems. The flavor of the bigger ones is intense and can overwhelm preparations, such as stir-fries or soups. So use the mushroom sparingly unless the intensity is pleasing to you.

read the rest of this article for more info and several recipies

As with most popular wild mushrooms, careful attention to the details of a few field identification characteristics; habitat, shape, color, texture and in this case, most distinctively, odor will guard against nearly all misidentification. The other side of the coin is to be familiar with the local species similar enough in appearance to your target species to be confused with it, be familiar with the local deadly species, in particular, the Amanitas (being a principal cause of poisonings locally), know the characteristics to be avoided, and, above all, if you’re not 100% sure of your identification don’t put it in your basket!

Just like pilots, there are old mushroom pickers and bold mushroom pickers, but, there are no old, bold ones. On the other hand, flying, like mushroom picking, cycling, and walking out your front door  all are inherently dangerous. Those who have no tolerance for risk should, and will stay home and eat canned mushrooms, if any. So the question then is not “Matsutake or not-so-take”, but “To Matsutake or Not-to-Take”.