Fresh and Dried Shiitake Mushrooms -- Top 4 Cooking Hints

Shiitake mushrooms have gotten a lot of press lately, as the generall good health of Japanese people is increasingly studied by scientists, and more dietary hints about the origins of their good health emerge. Dried shitake mushrooms have plenty of health benefits, and are almost as potent as the fresh version. If you’re doing any cooking with dried shiitakes, we are today exploring some general hints for using them in your dishes.

1. Storage

Creating dishes with maximum flavor and health actually begins as soon as you bring your ingredients home from the store. Shiitake mushrooms should be stored slightly differently to other fresh produce:

• Always store in the fridge
• A paper bag will stop them sweating and going slimy, but will allow them to dry out more quickly
• Plastic bags should only be used for a very short time -- everywhere the bag touches the mushroom it will develop a layer of slime on top
• Plastic punnets with the mushrooms loosely packed inside, and a cling film covering that doesn’t touch the mushrooms, seems to be ideal for keeping mushrooms fresh longer.

2. To wash, or not to wash?

Most shiitake mushrooms do not need to be washed. Even commercially grown ones rarely need to be sprayed with pesticides or have any herbicide drift -- they grow so quickly and are almost never grown alongside other crops. You might just want to brush any dirt off with a pastry brush.

Washing dried shiitake mushrooms will cause them to absorb the liquid, creating a less potent taste. It would be rare that this was necessary.

3. Prepping your dried shiitake mushrooms

The basic rule for mushrooms is to trim, but not peel. You'll find peeling your dried shiitake mushrooms inordinately difficult, and it will do nothing to improve the flavour while stripping the fungi or valuable healthy compounds! Shiitakes often have a long dry stem portion which needs to be trimmed, but if you buy dried this may have been done for you.

4. Precooking in the microwave

Did you know you can precook your dried shiitake mushrooms in the microwave? Mushrooms tolerate microwave cooking extremely well, and contrary to popular belief scientific studies have shown that substantially more vitamins are preserved using this method.