I have become tired of the poor quality and intermittent availability of oyster mushrooms in supermarkets in recent years. So I bought a King oyster kit from Suttons Seeds. It arrived less than four weeks ago. It was sitting in the little propagator they provide in a dark but well-ventilated cardboard box for two weeks and near a window since then. Today I had my first harvest. They are simpler to cultivate than the common mushroom. I got 175g of edible mushroom.
More after the break.
I have no sponsorship from or affiliation with any of the brands mentioned in this blog.
The Organic Gardening Catalogue has a range of mushrooms for cultivation, though none are organic. They have one kit for grey oyster mushrooms. They also sell some pre-inoculated logs that you just put outside and some dowels for inoculating your own logs.
Seeds of Italy have spawn for several mushrooms that you need to add to your own straw or whatever they grow on. They do, however have hazelnut trees already inoculated with various species of truffle. Just plant and wait. Obviously, don't apply fungicide to your garden while waiting.
The King oyster (Pleurotus eryngii) is found in most countries with a Mediterranean coast. It spreads north into France, Slovakia, Hungary and the southernmost states of what was the Soviet Union. Eastwards they extend as far as Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Afghanistan and India. They are quite variable and have different host plants in many areas. The species has been divided into several subspecies.
In Spain Pleurotus eryngii is called seta de cardo, in Italy cardoncello. The names come from their growing on a live host plant that is called cardo in Spanish and Italian. Though the usual translation of cardo is thistle and it does refer to the familiar thistles we know in the UK it is also used of members of the carrot family that look much the same as those familiar thistles of the daisy family. It is the carrot relatives that are the hosts of King oyster mushrooms. The commonest host of Pleurotus eryngii in Southwest Europe is Eryngium campestre. Around Bodrum in Southwest Turkey the mushroom is called körekmantarı (mantarı means mushroom) and is one of only two wild species commonly seen in markets. In Eastern Anatolia it is also well-known and sold in markets and by the road. There it has many names, including çaşır-, çakşır-, çaşur-, heliz-, kırkor-, göbek-, göbelek- and mendik-mantarı. I couldn't find any other common names for the mushroom from other countries (yet) except a possible "fennel mushroom" in Morocco.
The British native relative of the cardo is the Sea holly, Eryngium maritimum. The roots were harvested from the wild in olden times, candied and sold for their medicinal and aphrodisiac properties. Falstaff mentions them at the start of the final scene of Shakespeare's The Merry Wives of Windsor:
"My doe with the black scut! Let the sky rain
potatoes; let it thunder to the tune of Green
Sleeves, hail kissing-comfits and snow eringoes; let
there come a tempest of provocation, I will shelter me here"
Around the Mediterranean the cardo (Eryngium campestre) is a common weed and the prickles make it very painful to encounter. It is also used medicinally in most places it grows. The mushroom is also used medicinally in some places, such as in Iran where it can be bought dried and powdered as well as being commonly sold fresh in food markets.
Tesco have an "Asian selection" mixture of three different mushrooms, including King oyster, that works out at £12 per kilo. The King oyster is, in this case, Asian because it was cultivated in South Korea. These King oysters have been sliced lengthwise, presumably to make it easier for packing and to get the weight standardised. Even if it is one single mushroom they have still sliced it. I don't like any of my fresh food pre-cut if it is avoidable. At that price my harvest would be £2.10, although I would have to buy three packs to get near to what I just harvested. That would be £5.40. I should get a few more flushes of mushrooms from the kit as long as it doesn't get any pests.
Fine Food Specialist charge £9.99 for 500g, meaning my harvest would be worth £3.50. However these are the people who charge £98 per kilo for sea kale and £812 per kilo for Oxalis leaves. Any gardener or house plant enthusiast who has encountered Oxalis will know how expensive that is for a fast-growing unkillable plant. For those prices I would expect the botanical name to be included in the descriptions of their more exotic offerings and for them to know the difference between palate and palette.
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| Happy King Oyster mushrooms inside the propagator provided with the kit to keep the humid atmosphere they love. |
I made a simple noodle dish with my mushrooms:
175g King oyster mushrooms
25g Suma organic odourless coconut oil
200g Taifun fermented tofu
167g (2/3rds of a packet) of King Soba organic Thai rice noodles (Not made from soba, that is the brand name).
700ml United Utilities Manchester water
Melt coconut oil in a saucepan, chop and add King oyster mushrooms while raising the flame.
Fry vigorously for 5 minutes.
Add the boiling water.
Cube the fermented tofu, add it to the pan and bring back to the boil.
Allow to boil for a few minutes then add the white rice noodles broken into 3-4cm lengths.
Boil for 3 minutes, occasionally stirring.
Take off the heat and allow to stand for five to ten minutes in a covered pan.
The fermented tofu is slightly acidic in the same way as yoghurt and is also salty. Normally I would have added garlic, black pepper and possibly sun-dried tomato and chili. In this case I wanted to see how good the flavour was from freshly harvested mushrooms so I kept it quite basic. The mushrooms were frying within 5 minutes of still being attached to the mycelium.
This made two small bowlfuls. I did add a dozen cloves of pickled garlic and some pepper to the second bowlful.
As you can see from the picture the sauce absorbed into the noodles, add more water at the start if you like your noodles in a broth.
The noodles were delicious. The King oyster mushroom has a strong and distinctive flavour with a lot of umami taste. The texture varied from top to bottom. The very bottom of the clump and the cap of the mushroom were soft and delicate. The stalk between was quite tough and rubbery, though still chewable. They are often called "firm-textured" by people who want to sell them. The entry on Wikipedia states that they have a texture like abalone but I can't compare them as I have not even tried vegetarian mock abalone. If you think you would be put off by a bit of rubberiness then go for the grey or yellow oyster mushroom kits that are also available. They are the more familiar oyster mushroom shape with much more of the cap and less stalk. Make a soup by liquidising the mushrooms and the chewiness would not matter.
