Sous vide mushrooms?

Would there be any reason to try and cook mushrooms, specifically chanterelles, sous vide? Intuitively there doesn't seem to be a reason to try this with fresh and frozen?

But, I have dried chanterelles before and when rehydrating, they never seem to attain the tenderness of fresh, or sauteed/blanched frozen shrooms.

Maybe worth the experiment to mess around with this. Dried chanterelles, some with butter, some with olive oil, some with duck fat and some with pork fat. Will dried mushrooms rehydrate with /absorb fat cooked sous vide?

Suggestions?

Peter Cargasacchi wrote:Would there be any reason to try and cook mushrooms, specifically chanterelles, sous vide? Intuitively there doesn't seem to be a reason to try this with fresh and frozen?

But, I have dried chanterelles before and when rehydrating, they never seem to attain the tenderness of fresh, or sauteed/blanched frozen shrooms.

Maybe worth the experiment to mess around with this. Dried chanterelles, some with butter, some with olive oil, some with duck fat and some with pork fat. Will dried mushrooms rehydrate with /absorb fat cooked sous vide?

Suggestions?

Hi,

Chanterelles have a delicate flavor. If you get too creative with the fats involved, you will totally mask the mushroom's flavor.

I happen to have dried chanterelles I have never used. The few times I had quantities of chanterelles to work with, I sauteed them in butter and froze them.

Most of the mushrooms I have dried and rehydrated never quite had the texture of fresh. Their flavors were often more concentrated than fresh, which is a benefit.

If you do sous vide, I would be interested in outcome. I hope you will be cooking something else at the same time to make the time and effort worthy. I have a sense you will not get the tenderness you're expecting. It's not like working with an animal muscle where the sous vide is low enough to keep the muscle from contracting, thus allowing tendernous not usually achieved.

I'm ready to learn from your experience!

Regards,

I would also really like to know how the sous vide reconstitution of dried mushrooms fared... anyone have any experience with this?

Thanks.

How different would a sous vide reconstitution be from, say, an overnight soak in the fridge? Unless you're working with fat (like the OP suggests) or a meat collagen/gelatin, I don't really see what kind of help you're going to get from heat, either high or low. It's not as though the fibers are the type that would eventually break down in a soup or stew.

Speaking entirely in theory, I could see sous vide as a good method for imparting flavor to mushrooms - you could soak them in hot brandy or stock, and expect them to come out with that flavor - but if you're going for the original texture, I don't think it will work for you. (Although, as I write this, maybe alcohol is the answer - sous vide in vodka?)

Welcome to LTH Peter!

Peter grows some very fine grapes out in CA. You might see his wines at Binny's or one of the other fine retail wine shops in the area.
Or, if not his wines, the wines made from his vineyards.
check out his website http://www.cargasacchi.com/

The only benefit that I can see from sous vide is that by heating you are keeping the butter/duck fat/lard liquid, so you can reconstitute the mushrooms with fats that are solid at room temp. I've soaked morels in olive oil and they seemed to reconstitute (I was trying to give the oil flavor, and never tasted the mushrooms themselves). I think it would be worth trying - let us know what you find if you do!

Well, I gave the mushroom idea a try last night... Was sous videing a couple of chuck roasts, and decided to take several varieties of dried mushrooms (porcinis, morels, chanterelles) and put them in a ziplock bag with some boxed beef broth. I wanted to use that plus the mushrooms to help with my pan sauce. My water bath was at 131F, and I probably left the mushrooms in for about an hour or so.

The flavor imparted to the broth was awesome. The mushrooms themselves were a little mushier than I would have liked. Next time I might squeeze out as much liquid as I can and saute the 'shrooms in some butter before adding back to the sauce. But overall, it was really pretty decent.

A caveat: I'm just a guy who likes to cook... not a pro or anything.