How Much Money Can You Get For Lobster Mushrooms

Only slightly mushroom looking, lobster mushrooms tin can take a diversity of shapes.

The story of the lobster mushroom is an interesting one. If you noticed they don't look like typical stem-cap-gill mushrooms, yous'd be right. Well, near one-half right. Lobsters are actually a mushroom that get parasitized past some other fungus, called Hypomyces.

The Hypomyces fungus seems to infect areas where Russula and Lactarius mushrooms grow, causing them to alter shape and contort themselves. The funny part is that the transformation makes the mushrooms gustation amend than they would before. They only have a slight flavour and aroma of shellfish/crustaceans fresh, merely this intensifies when they're stale.

Habitat

Not merely are these great mushrooms to consume, they're ane of the easiest to chase. Yous can casually look for these in the woods like y'all would chanterelles, walking down a path until you see 1. It's bright red and easy to spot, not brown like a hen of the woods or a black like a trumpet. They do like to hide nether the leaves though.

Where I live in Minnesota, these will grow in the summer after Chanterelles in hardwood forests, usually starting around July-August. Look for places where milk cap mushrooms abound, or where you run across them nearby-they could be a clue lobsters will be near.

Y'all will discover them scattered well-nigh, if you lot find one, await around closely, as there will be more nearby. Sometimes I observe them growing in the same places as Chanterelles, in oak forests in southern MN. In northern Minnesota, I find Lobster Mushrooms scattered near in areas with Birch and other mixed woods.

Flavour

In the Midwest, lobster season volition start effectually mid summer (late July) and can become through September, depending. In the Pacific Northwest, the season will go longer into the autumn.

It's safe to say my original lobster mushroom cakes take a cult following 🙂 These should be one of the first things you make.

Harvesting

Yous want dense, heavy mushrooms

A proper lobster mushroom should be heavy, similar a paperweight. If the mushroom feels lite like styrofoam, has a potent fishy odor, or a pronounced regal color, they're too old, leave them be or encompass them with leaves in a futile endeavor to keep your spot hole-and-corner.

You wouldn't eat a moldy piece of meat, so don't consume an old, crumbly lobster. See my shelf life warning below too in the cooking portion.

Avoid dark purple, low-cal weight, or stinky (fishy) smelling lobsters

Some people will tell y'all they're ok, but these characteristics mean a lobster mushroom is old, and past prime, and unlike something like a chanterelle, lobster mushrooms have a reputation for making people sick when they're onetime. You wouldn't eat a moldy white potato, and so don't eat an old lobster mushroom.

Harvest Clean

Lobster mushrooms are one of the all-time for drying.

Lobster mushrooms can often exist vase shaped, serving as homes for pocket-size creatures, rain water reservoirs, and all around stuff you don't demand to consume.

When picking, trim the dirty ends from the lobsters, brush them as make clean every bit possible, and milk shake out detritus from the within, so cleave out the middle and whatsoever soft tissue using your knife—if it has a vase shape, this will brand for much less time when it comes to cleaning them at domicile.

Save ugly or slightly older mushrooms to dry

Older mushrooms that might be a bit long for the pan are a practiced candidate for dehydrating, and, equally lobsters dry out well, and are i of the best mushrooms to make into powder, I commonly relieve a few extra for drying each year.

Cleaning Demo

White Lobster Mushrooms

Completely white lobster mushrooms are a delicious anomaly.

Yep, you can eat them, and they're skillful. Sometimes you might run into lobster mushrooms that seem like they haven't fully undergone the transformation to hypomyces lactiflourum from their natural state.

Don't worry though, after a number of years, heated discussions with foragers, chefs, and mycologists, and cooking and serving hundreds upon hundreds of pounds of these, I tin tell you that if it's looks similar a lobster, fifty-fifty one-half way, and seems to exist parasitized by the Hypomyces, its edible, and good.

White lobster mushrooms have a slightly dissimilar, almost more tender texture, think of them as a hard-to-detect delicacy. I likewise wrote another post on white lobster mushrooms if y'all want to take a look.

Lobster mushroom terrine to be sliced and served with salad, or pan fried.

Cooking

When you combine the wide distribution with the quantity that can be harvested, these are a great mushroom, but the drawback is that they lack in season compared to something like a chanterelle. To become the almost out of your lobsters, proper caramelization is primal.

They deteriorate quickly, simply make wonderful pickles. If you lot get a agree of some fresh ones, cut them into large chunks and saute them in some butter with salt kickoff, then eat them all by themselves merely to gustation their flavor, it'southward mild, simply similar I mentioned, concentrates when dried.

Here are some basic things I've learned from years of cooking with these:

Like plenty of mushrooms, dried lobsters can become biting when used in backlog
Hands downward the all-time thing to know is that lobster mushrooms beloved contact with heat and fat. Exposing them to heat and fatty, fresh or dried, by a technique similar the tried and truthful fresh mushroom duxelles, or a dried mushrooms duxelles tin can help curb any bitterness and deepen their season.
When exposed to fat and heat, lobster mushrooms and others like sulphur shelf have a saffron/tumeric issue-they plow things yellow. This is really useful for making a beautiful risotto, or a chemical compound butter.
Since lobster mushrooms are mild tasting, endeavor mixing them with other mushrooms when cooking for a piffling multifariousness.
Simple preparations for these are best, like most mushrooms. Combining them with also many things can mean their flavor gets lost. Virtually of the time I just fry them upward, toss them with some herbs and a piddling finely chopped garlic and put them on height of things.

Lobster mushroom infused butter is some other favorite I introduced to the mushroom community years ago. You can make it with chip and trim.

Rubber / Shelf Life

After cooking, any leftover dish you've fabricated with lobster mushrooms needs to be eaten within a day or 2, and then characterization and date food you put in the fridge. Eating old lobster mushroom dishes has led to a number of cases of "mushroom poisoning", and information technology'south a horrible ordeal.

Don't be tempted to eat a past prime mushroom just because information technology's in your fridge and you forgot to get to it. I don't have any scientific studies to site, just I can tell you lot a few horror stories I've seen and heard nearly.

A Lobster Mushroom Allergy?

I'thou non a mycologist, or a md, but the lobster mushroom "allergy" rumor circulating appears to be due to the fact that lobster mushrooms contain a quantity of iodine, which could account for some of the slight fishy odour.

Some people with sensitivities to iodine, shellfish and or fish allergies, seem to have trouble eating lobster mushrooms, and experience mild allergic symptoms.

I haven't personally witnessed this though, then you're on your own with it-sample small amounts if you accept a shellfish allergy. Also, if information technology happens that anyone knows of studies or instances of this allergy, let me know so I tin update this post.

Lobster mushroom pave is a refined cake of lobster mushrooms. Requite information technology a shot, if you take some actress time, and a mandoline.

Recipes

Here'southward some of my favorites or places lobsters could exist substituted.

Lobster Mushroom Terrine
Swordfish With Lobster Mushroom Stuffing
Wild Mushroom Conserve
Pickled Lobster Mushrooms
Whole Roasted Lobster Mushrooms
Lobster Mushroom Butter
Lobster Mushroom Hollandaise
Lobster Mushroom Cakes
Wild Mushrooms With Persillade
Lobster Mushroom Crusted Walleye
Blimp Giant Lobster Mushrooms
Lobster-Aborted Entoloma Chowder
Seared Venison With Lobster Mushrooms
Lobster Mushroom Bisque

More Lobstahs!

Source: https://foragerchef.com/hypomyces-lactiflourum-aka-the-lobster-mushroom/

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