Mushrooms in the Thermomix®

When are mushrooms in season?

Wild mushrooms August to November (the first frost), cultivated mushrooms available all year round.

• Jan–
• Feb–
• Mar–
• Apr–
• May–
• Jun–
• Jul–
• AugOutdoor crop
• SepOutdoor crop
• OctOutdoor crop
• NovOutdoor crop
• Dec–

Outdoor crop: fresh European harvest. Protected crop: greenhouse or covered cultivation. Stored: European harvest kept in storage.

Buying and storing mushrooms

Fresh mushrooms smell pleasantly earthy, never sour or sweetish. The caps should be firm and dry, not slimy or blotchy. Button mushrooms have white to cream caps with no dark bruising. King oyster mushrooms and shiitake are firmer and more aromatic than button mushrooms. You can smell chanterelles before you even buy them: fruity and peppery. Ceps have brown caps with white flesh that does not turn blue when cut. Use pre-sliced mushrooms from plastic packs quickly.

Store mushrooms loose or in a paper bag in the fridge, never in plastic: that encourages mould and rot. Button mushrooms keep for 3 to 4 days this way, wild mushrooms 1 to 2 days. Drying extends their shelf life dramatically: slice them and dry at 40 to 50°C in a fan oven with the door slightly ajar for several hours, then grind them into mushroom powder in the Thermomix® or keep them whole in jars. To freeze: fry the mushrooms briefly, leave to cool and freeze. Freezing them raw makes them mushy.

Preparing mushrooms in the Thermomix®

We never soak mushrooms: it strips their flavour and makes them soggy. Instead, wipe them with a damp cloth or a mushroom brush. In the Thermomix® we prepare mushrooms for a Hunter’s Sauce and a Creamy Sauce roughly pre-cut: chop onions and garlic for 5 sec on speed 5, sweat at 120°C on speed 1, then add the mushrooms and cook them at 100°C on speed 1. For a Cream of Mushroom Soup, we bring the sweated mushrooms up to the boil with stock, then blend on speed 10 for a velvety soup.

Whole or halved mushrooms we steam in the Varoma at Varoma temperature for 12 to 15 minutes. Steaming keeps the bite and flavour better than boiling in water. For Pasta Funghi we slice the mushrooms and sweat them briefly before adding cream and stock.

The most common mistakes with mushrooms

• Washing mushrooms under running water. Mushrooms soak up water like a sponge. Wet mushrooms will not fry, they cook in their own juices and turn soft instead of aromatic and crisp. Only ever wipe them or clean them with a damp cloth, never soak them.
• Cooking wild and cultivated mushrooms for the same time. Wild mushrooms such as chanterelles or ceps have a firmer structure and need a little longer than button mushrooms. King oyster mushrooms behave more like wild ones. Button mushrooms are soft after 5 to 8 minutes, while ceps need 10 to 15 minutes for an even texture.
• Putting too many mushrooms in the pot at once. Mushrooms release a lot of liquid as they heat. In too large a quantity they boil instead of fry. Sweat them in batches, adding the next only once the first has taken on some colour. In the Thermomix®, add the mushrooms after sweating the onions, not all together from the start.

Goes well with mushrooms

These seasonal ingredients are in season at the same time, ideal for combining:

LeeksPeppersTomatoesPumpkin and SquashCarrotsPotatoes

Mushrooms in the monthly calendar: