About Gourmet Mushrooms
_________________Euro Gourmet offers fresh wild and cultivated mushrooms alongside frozen and dried, both domestic and imported.
One of the most important mushrooms in Italian cuisine is the porcini (piglet in Italian), king bolete, or cepe. Indeed, porcini are one of the most popular edible mushrooms globally. The porcini is a large, meaty mushroom - the cap can weigh up to one kilogram (2.2 lbs). A grilled porcini cap is sometimes called “the poor person’s steak”. Porcini have a bold earthy flavor with nutty overtones. We carry fresh wild porcini from South Africa as well as the West Coast of the US, frozen Italian porcini, and dried porcini from Italy and South America.
Extremely popular in French cuisine is the morel. This springtime mushroom is meaty, earthy and nutty. The Latin name for one species is Morchella deliciosa, which gives you an idea of how good they are! Those who hunt them in the wild often keep their favorite spots a secret. The flavor becomes intensely concentrated when dried, and morels reconstitute exceedingly well.
Chanterelles are another highly sought after mushroom. With an apricot aroma and a peppery, slightly floral flavor, they are tender yet hold together well in cooking. They are often cooked with eggs, or, in Europe, traditionally paired with venison. Due to their sweetness, people even make sorbet from them. A similar mushroom is the hedgehog or sweet tooth mushroom, which is closely related to the chanterelle.
Portabella or portabello mushrooms are simply brown crimini mushrooms that have reached a diameter of 4-6”. Often used as a burger substitute or on the grill, they are substantial and meaty.
The maitake, also called hen of the woods, ramshead or sheepshead, resembles a hen with ruffled feathers, or sheep’s wool. The Japanese name, maitake, means “dancing mushroom”, not because the mushroom dances, but because a mushroom hunter who finds one dances! Perhaps this dates back to the time when Japanese shoguns traded maitake for silver on a pound for pound basis. They can be quite large, not uncommonly up to ten pounds, and even as high as 50 pounds. One of the four main mushrooms of Japanese cuisine, they are found in nearly every Japanese grocery store. They have a firm, meaty texture and a delicious rich nutty flavor. Besides the flavor, maitake are heralded for their health benefits as immune boosters and system balancers. They are widely used in traditional Chinese and Japanese medicine.
Another gourmet mushroom popular in Asian cuisine and medicine is the shiitake. Shiitake means “oak mushroom” in Japanese, as they grow on oak trees. Shiitake are known for their cholesterol lowering properties, along with their immune boosting and anti-cancer effects. They are the second most cultivated mushroom in the world, after the plain button mushroom so prevalent in American supermarkets. They have the meaty texture so common to mushrooms, with a unique smoky flavor.
Not mushrooms, but subterranean fungi, truffles have been called “the diamond of the kitchen”. An elite gourmet food, they are especially important in French and Italian cuisine. Unassuming in appearance, truffles look like potatoes, often knobby potatoes. Truffle season runs from September until May, although there are black summer truffles, which do not have as strong an aroma or flavor as the black truffles and white truffles harvested in winter. Summer black truffles are available from June to November and grow from northern Italy through Central Europe and in the UK, as well as Turkey and North Africa. Black truffles are concentrated in the Perigord region in southwest France, although they grow also in Spain and Italy. White truffles come from the Piedmont region of Italy, especially around Alba, where there is a famed truffle market. They are also found in Croatia.
Although truffles were cultivated in Europe in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, in acres of truffle orchards, industrialization caused an exodus from the countryside and World War I decimated the French work force, so that when these orchards stopped producing, they were not replaced. So, where truffles had become relatively plentiful due to cultivation, they once again became rare wild finds, with a corresponding high price tag. Truffles are usually found by truffle hunters with pigs or dogs. Female pigs are naturally attracted to a scent compound in truffles that is similar to a boar’s sex pheromone; however, they tend to try to eat their finds. Dogs must be trained to seek the odor of truffles, but are not interested in eating them once they find them. Truffles are very pungent, so that a little provides a lot of flavor. They can be sealed in a jar with uncooked rice to flavor it, or in a plastic bag with eggs–the truffle flavor penetrates through the shells. Favorite culinary uses include grating truffle over hot pasta–especially with a cream sauce–or tucking thin slices of truffle under the skin of poultry before roasting. They are used to flavor omelets and foie gras, olive oil and butter, and in some specialty cheeses, like the caciotta with truffles we carry. Truffles, like oysters and chocolate, are rumored to be aphrodisiacs.
We have fresh truffles by the ounce, in season of course, as well as frozen black, white, and black summer truffles. We also stock preserved truffles, truffle peelings, truffle honey, truffle juice, truffle and porcini paste and cream, mushroom and truffle sauce, truffle flavored flour, polenta, and rice, and truffle infused honey, olive oil, and balsamic vinegar. Enrich your diet today!
CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW TO LEARN MORE ABOUT SPECIFIC PRODUCTS AND THEIR RICH HISTORY:
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PASTA | OLIVE OIL | VINEGARS | FISH & SEAFOOD | VEGETABLES | MUSHROOMS
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