Calling All Mycologists- Name That Mushroom:

OK- while the mystery has been solved (I queried a few LTH'ers offsite who got me an answer lickety split,) they asked that I post the findings:

My initial email:
There are these incredible mushrooms (picture below) I've been getting at a NY Chinatown produce market. (Henry Street under the Manhattan Bridge)
Great smooth shroomy flavor and pleasantly elastic texture when cooked.
I'll cut 'em into 1/4" thick slices and brown them in smoking hot olive oil and finish them with a drizzle of nam pla. They work great on pizza too.
Trouble is, I don't know what they're called. The folks that work at the market tell me the Chinese name- which I can't begin to remember or try to phoneticize...
Can anybody name that mushroom?




Bring in the mycologists (such fun guys):

Hi Cathy, Peter, Mark,

Greg and I had no clue at all. So we asked our Chinese student and he knew it and has seen it for sale here in Chinatown in Chicago.
Thanks, Patrick

Pleurotus eryngii
The following text is taken from : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pleurotus_eryngii

Pleurotus eryngii (also known as king trumpet mushroom, king oyster mushroom) is an edible mushroom native to Mediterranean regions of Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, but also grown in parts of Asia.[1] In Chinese, it is called xìng bào gū (杏鮑菇, lit. "almond abalone mushroom"), cì qín gū (刺芹菇, lit. "stab celery mushroom"), or 刺芹側耳. In Japanese, it is called eringi (katakana: エリンギ).

It is the largest species in the oyster mushroom genus, Pleurotus, with a thick, meaty white stem and a small tan cap (in young specimens). It has little flavor or aroma, and when cooked its texture is similar to that of abalone.

The mushroom has a good shelf life. It was introduced to Japan around 1993 and has become popular there.[2]

Its species name is derived from the fact that it grows in association with the roots of Eryngium campestre or other Eryngium plants (English names: 'Sea Holly' or 'Eryngo').


The follow-up with cooking tip:

Thanks Patrick!

I first encountered these mushrooms in a dish, Fresh Mixed Mushrooms and Fried Bean Curd, at Congee Village in New York City (Peter- did we have them there? If not, next visit it is a must!) Congee Village also features a number of abalone dishes- which I've yet to try. Looks like I need to check them out for textural comparison...
Check out these fantastic mushrooms when you have a chance. Oh- I teach pizza making from time to time. Here's a little trick I developed for mushrooms. Works great with the pleurotus eryngii- trouble is getting them onto the pizza as we end up eating most of them straight from pan!

-Pre-sauteeing wet ingredients
with mushrooms for example, pre-sauteeing in a little extra virgin olive oil, garlic and salt will release a lot of liquid that would otherwise dampen your pizza. If you really want to bump up the shroominess of this prep, sub a little bit of nam pla for salt. (nam pla is fish sauce- readily found in Asian markets and often many supermarkets these days) The properties of the fish sauce work in a similar fashion as a great Italian trick for preparing black truffles in which a small fillet of anchovy is melted into oil with garlic to boost the truffliness.

best,
Mark


Last but not least:

BTW that photo was shot with my cell phone. For the past few weeks I've been pulling out my phone and showing the image to food friends all over NYC and had yet to get an positive ID- leave it to the pros at LTH!
Just a 15 minutes ago, grabbing take-out at my favorite neighborhood place JM Family Noodle (I live in Chinatown, NYC), I showed them the pic and they said "Oh- chicken leg mushroom!" When will this mushroom get a universal moniker?
On deck, I'm making risotto with those bad boys and finishing the dish with some porcini oil (I recently tried to get my dad to put them in his risotto con funghi but the Italian purist in him couldn't do it. So I stir fried them up with mentioned technique and we ended up eating all of them by the stove as we stirred the rice)

there is great fungus among us-
Mark

I showed them the pic and they said "Oh- chicken leg mushroom!" When will this mushroom get a universal moniker?

While names like chicken leg, hen of the woods or Mommy's favorite 'shroom all sound cute. The fungus they're referring to can vary wildly from region to region.

While Latin names ought to be the absolute definitive names for a mushroom, well even that is not so secure. Fungi/mushrooms get re-catagorized and subsequently re-named from time to time. What is really setting the nomenclature on its ear is DNA. Fungi that doesn't share obvious common characteristics, which is one method of categorization, are found to have common DNA. Maybe the name game will conclude with the DNA-directed recatagorizing.

An elderly friend who is retiring her interests in mycology told me she is tired of keeping up with the nomenclature changes. Just being out of the loop for a few years was enough to make her feel like a beginner again.

While there are plenty of fun-guys, please don't forget there are just as many fun-gals!

Regards,

I'm glad to see this post - I've been seeing this mushroom (labeled "king oyster mushroom") at H-Mart and have been wanting to try it; this gives me the push I need.

Of course it's a type of oyster mushroom! Anyone can see it's clearly marked "Seafood Department"

These were on sale at H-Mart when I was Thanksgiving shopping, and I needed mushrooms, so I picked some up. I added some to a breakfast scramble this morning - Sparky was not happy; I had to promise not to put them in anything for Thanksgiving.

At any rate, the nice feature of these mushrooms is that they are very fleshy and meaty, and hold up to cooking; they don't cook down the way other mushrooms do, and need liquid added - otherwise they crisp up like potatoes (not all bad, unless you're trying to get them to absorb some garlic, which I was) I didn't find that they had a lot of mushroomy flavor on their own, but they absorb as well as any other 'shroom.

They remind me a bit of the little brown enoki-like mushrooms H-Mart also often has - I think they're called "beech mushrooms" I wonder if they are the adult version of these.

Hi,

Actually enoki (Flammulina velutipes) are white from being grown in a sunless environment. They do grow wild around here with their natural colors. Their common name is velvet foot or velvet stem. The stem has a nice brown velvet color.

Tom Volk comments more here. Note in the corner is a little sound bit offering a sound bite on how to pronounce the latin. I have a tape where two mycologists: one European trained and ther other American trained pronounce a wide range of latin names with some native differences.

I might get to H-Mart later today to look at those mushrooms. I am fairly sure they have no relationship to enoki.

Regards,

The beech mushrooms aren't enoki - they're listed in the above link as Hypsizygus marmoreus, they're just similar in that they have threadlike stems that end in a big root ball - but they're shorter and have larger caps in either white or brown. I don't know how accurate the site I linked to is, but they list the King Oyster as Pleurotus eryngii; I'd have answered my own question if I looked that up.