I wasn’t sure how to title this post because this particular mushroom has so many names including: Lion’s Mane Mushroom, Bearded Tooth Mushroom, Satyr’s Beard, Bearded Hedgehog Mushroom and Pom Pom mushroom. In Asian cuisine, it is known as Monkey Head Mushroom. I have never found this particular mushroom in the wild but luckily for us you can obtain it in the dried form from the Taiwanese Supermarket in Belize City. For a long time I had avoided these mushrooms because I did not know how to prepare them for cooking. The Chinese person at the supermarket would look about me dubiously (because I kinda look like a Chinese person but act like a “white person”) and shake her head at me,
“…you know how to cook? If you don’t do it right, it taste bitter…”
Well, this time, the Chinese person in me broke through and I was determined to try these tasty treats!
This is what it looks like once it is soaked in water.
I did some research on the preparation and basically you just need to soak the dried mushroom in water for about an hour until it gets soft. During this time, you keep on changing the water until it turns clear.
After that you can cut it up into pieces and cook it anyway which way you want…sauted in butter, Chinese-style, in soups and stews, etc, etc.
I’ll be posting up some new recipes with Hericium erinaceus over the next few weeks so watch this space. I did my first test cook by sautéing it in cacao butter with onions and garlic:
The verdict:
“It’s tasty! It tastes like chicken!!”
I replied by saying,
“Oh, but…on the Internet, they say it tastes like “beef!”
