'Shroom 101: The shopper's guide to mushrooms
At a time when we're all being encouraged to eat more vegetables, the healthy mushroom comes into its own. They're easy to prepare and wonderful in a wide variety of dishes ranging from cool summer salads to hot winter casseroles.
There are many thousands of mushrooms, although the edible varieties are available in two forms: wild or cultivated. As the name suggests, wild mushrooms are those picked in season from forest floors, damp fields and leaf-littered woodlands. Cultivated varieties, on the other hand, are grown in carefully controlled environments and are available all year round. Most importantly, they can be bought at even the humblest of supermarkets, without getting your hands and knees dirty.
Cultivated mushrooms are grown on pasteurised compost in conditions that replicate damp autumn mornings. Each crop takes six weeks to grow before they're picked by hand. And because they tend to be on the supermarket shelf a mere 24 hours after being picked, cultivated mushrooms are among the freshest of vegetables available in our shops.
- Buying mushrooms
Handle them with care as they bruise easily. Once purchased, put them in their paper bag in the salad drawer of the refrigerator and eat them within three days. If you buy them in a pre-pack, take off the cling film and put the mushrooms into a paper bag or wrap them in absorbent kitchen paper. - Preparation
Rinse mushrooms quickly under cold running water just before you use them. Dry them on absorbent kitchen paper. Never peel cultivated mushrooms and only trim off their stalks if they are tough. The whole mushroom is edible and the skin contains nutrition and flavour. Mushrooms are a no-waste vegetable. - Cooking
Mushrooms are natural carriers of flavour and should be cooked quickly. If you're adding them to a dish that cooks slowly, such as a casserole, stir them in only for the last quarter of an hour. The average portion per person of cooked mushrooms is 175g.
Go straight to inspirational mushroom recipes
Over the page: Nature's health food
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