# Grilled Mushroom Salad



## french fries (Sep 5, 2008)

Easy, quick and fun when grilling: GRILLED MUSHROOM SALAD

1) Grill mushroom (any mushroom will do, I usually mix and match several and my favorite is Shiitake, but Crimini or standard white are less expensive and work great too).

2) In a large bowl, prepare salad dressing.

3) Slice mushrooms and toss well with dressing.

Now a few indications:

1) Grill the mushrooms really well so they're almost charred. When all your friends are asking "aren't those completely burnt?", the mushrooms are ready. You're looking for taste here, not looks. And a blackened mushroom sure tastes great.

2) You have to make a fantastic dressing for this recipe. Fantastic doesn't mean complicated. It means full of well balanced flavors. I try to balance spicy, sweet, savory and acid. There are a few ways to do that. An example would be Thai sweet chili sauce, Fish sauce, crushed garlic (if you have always wondered what to do with that garlic press, now is the time to take it out the drawer), lemon juice, and toasted sesame oil. But the oil is not necessary, the lemon could be lime, meyer lemon, orange, yuzu, ponzu, Gruzu and Marzu, the fish sauce could be replaced by soy sauce, tamari, braggs or salt, etc... or if you feel tired of Asian flavors, you could try olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper. I would still recommend the crushed garlic though.

3) Don't like to slice the mushrooms? Leave them whole. Don't like them too neat? Shread them with your fingers rather than cutting them with a knife. Works great with shiitakes. Like them neat? Mince them in little cubes. Whatever you like.

4) Wanna add minced fresh parsley? By all means go ahead. What? You said Cilantro? Sure, why not. However you like it.

Hope you like it. Perfect with a grilled chicken leg, a grilled steak, a grilled fish fillet etc...


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## koukouvagia (Apr 3, 2008)

I would not agree that a blackened mushroom is great, just my opinion.  I do like them grilled though, I usually mix cremini, oyster, and shiitaki.  Make sure they're really dry.  Drizzle olive oil in a screaming hot pan and throw them in making sure to do it in batches and not crowd the pan.  It doesn't take more than 2 minutes.  When they're nearly done I throw in a little minced garlic and fresh thyme and season.  Drop into a bowl, toss with fresh parsley and a squirt of lemon.


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## chefedb (Apr 3, 2010)

Sorry don't agree with your love of charred taste in mushrooms or the look . Also you might want to try Portobello as they are thicker and stay moist on the inside and have great flavor. In fact many places grill and serve on burger bun or make a stack of Portobello, eggplant, red pepper, zuchinni grilled and doused with a balsamic reduction glaze.


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## petalsandcoco (Aug 25, 2009)

Well FF,

It sounds as if you really enjoyed writing this post and that you enjoyed the salad alot ! I would like to thank you for sharing , one of my favorite  summer salads is mushroom.(and arugula , and sprouts)

I love mine with fresh lemon juice, olive oil, soya, a little grate of parm , on a a bed of baby spinach with crumbled cheese. (Then again, put anything with citrus and you have my full attention)

Thanks for the post.


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

Hi FF,

i tried this last night and it was really good.  I don't know or have access to many of the dressing ingredients you mentioned, but I just took them off the grill and added oil, balsamic vinegar, crushed garlic, fresh parsley and thyme and lots of black pepper and salt of course.  Let them  marinate while i made the rest of the supper.  Then i made a bed of arugula dressing it with oil and vinegar, s and p and put the mushrooms on top.  I had to take some out before it was eaten completely by husband and son, who were headed to devouring it all,  because i got the great idea to make a sandwich today with the leftovers.  It sat all night in the fridge and was tastier still, and i toasted some home made rustic bread, buttered, and put the arugula and mushroom salad in with shavings of parmigiano.  Really good!

I used these mushrooms called chiodini (little nails - they're shaped like nails, long stems and tiny tops, and come in clusters) and the regular white champignons (but i can get them here nice and firm and unopened, so i sliced them through the cap so there were two thinner disks, and cut the stems lenghthwise in two.  (They're about an inch and a half across).

Thanks!  I'll be making this a lot.


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## chefedb (Apr 3, 2010)

Siduri  In USA I think these are called Enochi mushrooms.(are they creamy white color?)


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## french fries (Sep 5, 2008)

Ed Buchanan said:


> Sorry don't agree with your love of charred taste in mushrooms or the look . Also you might want to try Portobello as they are thicker and stay moist on the inside and have great flavor. In fact many places grill and serve on burger bun or make a stack of Portobello, eggplant, red pepper, zuchinni grilled and doused with a balsamic reduction glaze.


Hey Ed, I don't "love the charred taste". I do like the taste the mushrooms develop (mainly white button mushrooms) when you cook them thoroughly, ALMOST charred as I stated originally. It's a taste you won't find in a medium-cooked mushroom. But anyway to each his own, if you like mushrooms barely cooked, or medium cooked, I'm sure the salad will work great as well! Heck, I sometimes put raw mushrooms in my salads.

I'm not a fan of portabello mushrooms at all. I find them to be overpriced, oversized crimini mushrooms. I don't find them to have much flavor, compared to, say, a shiitake.

Thanks to all of you for suggesting additions. This recipe was originally found in an old Thai cookbook of mine, but the recipe was over complicated (marinate mushrooms first etc..) and called for ingredients that are not easily found in the U.S. (like cliantro roots for example). I've since "made the recipe my own" and apparently so have you guys! /img/vbsmilies/smilies/smile.gif

I think next time I do it I'll try your suggestions for a Mediterranean version with olive oil, lemon, parmeggiano and arugula - sounds very tasty.

I also have in mind a "French" version where I could make the dressing out of finely minced shallots marinated in red wine vinegar and salt, then add dijon mustard, and olive oil, finish with flat parsley and/or chives.

I served this the other day with a pan seared trout meuniere and cooked carrot salad... delicious!


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

Ed Buchanan said:


> Siduri In USA I think these are called Enochi mushrooms.(are they creamy white color?)


you mean the chiodini? they're dark brown. The others, champignon, or cultivated mushrooms, are creamy white. But here you usually find them very fresh - so hard they bounce and the gills are completely closed.


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## teamfat (Nov 5, 2007)

Okay, here's my spiel on shrooms. Crimini, portabella or portobello, button ( brown or white) baby bella, garden mushrooms, common mushrooms, table mushrooms, whatever - they are all _*agaricus*_ _*bisporus*_ in one form or another, one stage in life or another.



They are quite tasty, I use them a lot in my cooking.

I also like enoki or enochi mushrooms, the little bulbs on the end of the long stalks. Last time my little sister was here with her kids we walked to a now defunct sushi place a couple of blocks away. In the course of the meal we got some rolls with enoki in them. I tried to convince the kids they were Minnesota mosquito antlers - I don't think the kids believed me, drat.



These are also really good in spring or summer rolls

mjb.


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## siduri (Aug 13, 2006)

Teamfat - the white round ones are the ones i used, and they call them champignon here, common white cultivated mushrooms.  There is a type that is pretty much identical to them that are brown.  I don't think they have a specific name. 

The enoki in the picture above are identical to the "chiodini" (literally, little nails) that I meant, except the ones here are always medium to dark brown - stems light brown and heads medium or dark brown.  Maybe it's a similar variation as the brown champignon to the white, because they really do look identical. 

They don't have shitake here, never ate one.  There are other mushroom varieties available easily, some that look like fans, some are like the common white ones but are less thick and the caps are open exposing all the ?gills.   and then the ubiquitous Porcini (little pigs) which you get dried in the US.  I personally dislike them but others say they're the only REAL mushroom.  To each his own. 

A memory of my childhood (Boston area) is that the old italian immigrant family friends who would come visit us would go into the woods around our house looking for the wild mushrooms.  They would all say, in italian, what i understood to mean "the seventeeny are out" but i think they were saying "settembrini" - september ones.  Older men with paper bags and women with using their flowered aprons as a bag would go out collecting them , and my grandfather, always in his three piece suit, hat and cane, white starched shirt and tie and handlebar moustache, would be out directing the picking.  He knew which were good and which were poisonous but he refused to eat any of them!


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## koukouvagia (Apr 3, 2008)

Haha, Siduri I know a lot of elderly greeks who wouldn't touch a mushroom if you paid them a million dollars.  They don't really believe it when you tell them it's not poisonous.  They're always like "you never know."

Personally I don't care for the white button mushrooms.  They kind of taste like a wet bandaid.  The lesser evil is the cremini which has a bit more developed flavor but again, I don't use it if I don't have to.  I find enoki, shitaki (one of my favoritres) and oyster mushrooms here fresh easily.  I wish I could find chanterelles, morels, and porcinis fresh but I can only find them dried.  Good enough but have never eaten them fresh.


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## french fries (Sep 5, 2008)

I recently started buying "beech" mushrooms. They are very, very flavorful! Never tried them in a salad though - more of a side for a protein, or simply as an apetizer...


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## ekinoderminator (Jun 8, 2010)

Koukouvagia said:


> Haha, Siduri I know a lot of elderly greeks who wouldn't touch a mushroom if you paid them a million dollars. They don't really believe it when you tell them it's not poisonous. They're always like "you never know."
> 
> Personally I don't care for the white button mushrooms. They kind of taste like a wet bandaid. The lesser evil is the cremini which has a bit more developed flavor but again, I don't use it if I don't have to. I find enoki, shitaki (one of my favoritres) and oyster mushrooms here fresh easily. I wish I could find chanterelles, morels, and porcinis fresh but I can only find them dried. Good enough but have never eaten them fresh.


Soon fresh poricini will be in full force in my kitchen - at the moment it is morels.



A few months ago the chanterelles were very plentiful...



Candy Caps were also a treat this year - and they really are an under appreciated/undiscovered gem!


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