Why You Can't Overcook Mushrooms and The Science Behind Them | Mushrooms | What's Eating Dan?

the largest organism on earth is not the blue whale but a single fungus found in a forest in oregon this specimen of the honey mushroom is thought to occupy over 1600 football fields worth of soil and weigh over 100 tons it's thought to be at least 2 400 years old and it's mycelium that thread-like network that grows underground glows in the dark oh it's also supposed to be delicious have you ever wondered how we figured out which mushrooms were safe to eat and which weren't well we had the ancient greeks and romans to thank for that when they found a new mushroom and they wanted to know if it was safe they involved food tasters that's a fun job there are over a thousand edible mushroom varieties in the world but only about 20 are commercially cultivated the most common mushrooms at the supermarket are all the same species agaricus by sporus this includes white also known as button mushrooms cremini and portobello mushrooms cremini are a darker variety of white mushrooms and portobello are just mature cremini mushrooms other common varieties that you see are shiitake oyster king trumpet chanterelles maitake which are also known as head of the woods and morels but there are so many more porcini enoki black trumpet blue foot yellow foot beach lion's mane and woodier and the list goes on and on and each variety has its own unique texture and flavor which is what makes cooking with mushrooms so enjoyable to me mushrooms are fascinating largely because of what they're not they're not plants and they're not animals they're in their own kingdom entirely this actually has a big implications for how we cook with mushrooms so check out this little experiment i placed a steamer basket in a large pot of simmering water and in that steamer basket i placed a small piece of beef tenderloin a chunk of zucchini and a piece of portobello mushroom cap and i steamed them for 45 minutes at five minute intervals i pulled each sample out and measured their firmness with my texture analyzer you remember that nerdy fella from the burger video right the data makes a pretty cool looking chart but honestly the better visual is looking at everything side by side after 45 minutes a piece of beef tenderloin is so dry and tough and overcooked that frankly it's a little painful to look at at the other end of the spectrum the zucchini has turned to complete mush but now take a look at this portobello mushroom cap now granted it's steamed for 45 minutes so it's not the prettiest mushroom we've ever seen but the real key here is that it has neither turned to leather nor turned to mush in fact it's pretty tender and nice oh and don't worry about that leathery piece of beef tenderloin going to waste we have lots of dogs in the office and i fed it to this one her name is buca as in buccatini the pasta how is it possible that a mushroom can cook for that long and still be good to eat well the key to a mushroom's resiliency lies in its cell walls which are made up of a substance called chitin it's a polymer composed of a nitrogen-containing sugar called n-acetylglucosamine and the key bit is that it's really heat stable interestingly chitin also is found in the shells of crustaceans where it mingles with calcium carbonate and a lot of protein to make them particularly tough we know that the proteins in beef are really heat sensitive that's why we use a super fast digital thermometer to make sure we nail the exact right temperature for medium rare maximizing tenderness and juiciness and plant cell walls are glued together with pectin which is equally heat sensitive allowing our zucchini to go from really crisp to tender to mush in just minutes but in a mushroom heat sensitive chitin cells form an interconnected structure like this and that is why it's actually pretty hard to overcook a mushroom they're pretty bulletproof but they do present a unique challenge all their own let's go to the kitchen and check it out here's how mushroom sauteing usually works you heat a little bit of oil in your skillet you throw in your mushrooms and you start stirring then all of a sudden all the oil is gone so you add a little bit more oil you stir a little bit more all the oil disappears again you add a little more oil because frankly you're not even sauteing at this point you stir the oil is gone you add more oil you stir once again it's gone it keeps disappearing to the point where you could have just deep fried these mushrooms why does this happen well check out this experiment i tossed 100 grams of halved button mushrooms with a quarter cup of vegetable oil after five minutes i strained them and weighed the mushrooms again i also repeated the exact same steps with 100 grams of mushrooms that i first microwaved the raw mushrooms absorbed 42 grams of oil that's about 3 tablespoons while the cooked ones they absorb two grams that's right just a half teaspoon of oil that's a massive difference and here's why it happens the stems and caps of mushrooms are made up of a large network of fibers called hyphae that are 80 to 90 water this tissue also contains tons of air pockets in which oil can collect cooking forces water and air out of the hyphae but thanks to their tightness cell walls they don't break down with no place for the oil to go it simply stays on the surface of the mushrooms where it helps with browning okay so it's time to cook and i'm starting with a little over a pound of mushrooms this is a mix of some of my favorite varieties but seriously grab whatever kind you want and i'm going to saute these mushrooms by adding water seriously i'm adding a quarter cup of water to the skillet and popping everything over high heat after five minutes you can see that the mushrooms have collapsed and the skillet is dry like this then i just add a half teaspoon of oil and brown them up like this we know these mushrooms aren't overcooked because we now know that's pretty hard to do and they aren't loaded up with a quarter cup of vegetable oil so that's great and because i didn't need all that oil to cook them in i can finish them with a little bit of butter for gloss and richness i'm gonna go with just salt and pepper and plenty of both but you can go as crazy as you want red wine soy sauce ginger you name it this is your new go-to technique for mushrooms and this is how to eat mushrooms did you like that video well let me know in the comments about your craziest experience with mushrooms alright and don't forget to hit that subscribe button we'll see you next time

Channel: America's Test Kitchen

Views: 1,525,500

Keywords: cook's illustrated, what's eating dan, dan souza, mushrooms, how to cook mushrooms, the best way to cook mushrooms, mushroom varieties, mushroom variety recipes, mushroom experience, cooking, cooking mushrooms without oil, cooking mushrooms, america's test kitchen, kitchen, recipe, eat, cook, how to, the best mushrooms, mushroom recipes, what are mushrooms, are mushrooms vegetables, are mushrooms plants or fungi, are mushrooms plants, edible mushrooms

Id: XLPLCmwBLBY

Length: 5min 43sec (343 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 01 2018