11/26/2009

Bearded tooth mushroom

Yesterday, Mr. Ladybug went to a nearby forest during his lunch break and found a large "bearded tooth" mushroom. This is the second time in a week that we found this highly prized mushroom.
It has been a great adventure to seek and eat wild mushrooms that are unavailable at grocery stores. And by focusing on a few easily identifiable families of mushrooms, we were able to avoid any chance of poisoning-our mushrooms have key characteristics that cannot be confused with any poisonous species.
Bearded tooth is one of them. It tastes great and has many health benefits (three types of antioxidants, memory improvement, cancer fighting compounds, etc.)

昨日ジョンが会社のお昼休みに近所の森に散歩に行ったところ、そこで巨大な山伏茸を見つけました(どんな田舎なんじゃ~!)。山伏茸は今が時期なのでしょう、今週2回目の収穫です。
日本と違って、こちらのスーパーはごく限られた種類のマッシュルームしか置いていないので、キノコ狩りは私達にとってまさに実益を兼ねた楽しみです。
まだビギナーレベルなので、絶対に安全な数種類のキノコに集中して、それだけを摘むことにしているので間違って毒キノコを食べる心配はありません。山伏茸もそのようなキノコのうちの一つで、見分けるのが簡単なうえにものすごく美味、しかも健康に大変よいことで知られているそうです(若返り、記憶力の向上、ガンの予防、等々)。



The bearded tooth looks like its name-it looks like a white ball of fur or hair. We have our pet, "Edna" the ladybug on top of the mushroom in order to show off its size. It was probably about 2 pounds (since it contained so much moisture).
昨日収穫した山伏茸。エドナちゃんがこんなに小さく見えます。ものすごく水分が多いのでどっしりと重く、2パウンド(1キロ弱)はあったでしょう。英語の名前のとおり、白いひげのかたまりのように見えます。何かハリネズミのようにも見えますね。


We've been enjoying it in soup, rice (takikomi-gohan), risotto, sautéed...we deep fried them with panko last night. It was very juicy and creamy soft, yet had a wonderful texture which was similar to fresh shrimp or oyster.
今まで味噌汁、炊き込みご飯、リゾット、ソテーなど色々な調理法で楽しみましたが、昨日は初めてフライにしてみました。熱を通したあともものすごくジューシーでやわらかいんですが、同時にシーフードのようなプリプリ感があって、ソース(ブルドック)とマヨネーズでいただいたら牡蠣フライを食べているようで得した気分になりました♪

3 comments:

  1. That looks so yummy! After seeing your mushroom finds I have started studying how to identify the edibles myself. Hopefully I will be ready to venture out by spring.

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  2. Hi! Moggy,

    Happy to read that you are getting ready for venturing out! We are looking forward to spring as well and also summer is supposed to be a good time to look for mushrooms.
    To us, the bearded tooth tasted the best when they were simply sauteed with good olive oil (after trying various cooking method...).

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  3. I just got the book I've been waiting for. I ordered it back in October from Amazon! Can you believe it took over 4 months to arrive. Anyway, I hope to have some time to sit down and start studying it soon. I'm excited to try foraging I've always wanted to.

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