🗁Added 13 photos to album Homemade food.
The great Latvian mushroom adventure.
I bought a bunch of different types of mushrooms from the giant market, all new to me, in various states of decay. Some were bizarrely cheap, some were shockingly expensive. Obviously I had no idea what to expect, so maybe this was all perfectly normal.
When I got home I discovered one batch had some teeny tiny larvae crawling around on them. I rehomed them in the plumbing system, where I am sure they will thrive, and threw out any mushrooms they had thoroughly moved inside of, which was fortunately few.
The giant one is a bolete, and I think the smaller ones that look the same must be as well. I sorted out all of the small probably-boletes and halved them. I threw them in a pan and added naught but heat, and they soon turned into soup all by themselves. I'd rinsed them to try to get rid of some slime, and they just sucked the water right up. It was impossible to remove. See also: photo of me trying to try the big one out with a hair dryer (not successful).
I let them simmer for an hour or more, until they were thoroughly mush, then stuck them in the fridge when they were cool cos I had plans to eat out that night.
When I finally got around to consuming them as soup, they had reduced and gelled up a bit. I reheated them, and added a drizzle of soya sauce, almond milk and a handful of nutritional yeast. The soup was delicious. When I'd been preparing them, the texture and sounds started to really weird me out - I'm not usually squeamish. Fortunately they were just soft and melty in the soup and not weird at all.
The giant bolete, I sliced and fast-fried in vegetable oil. The internet advised me to cook it quick so the outside would go crispy but retain the moisture on the inside. It wasn't really like this; the result was preeetty slimy. It definitely resembled some kind of seafood, not that I know much about that. I could see it as a substitute though.
The more solid mushrooms, a mix of yellow, grey (beautiful grey) and a lonely red one, I lightly sauteed in oil with some salt and pepper. I wanted to keep them pretty unadorned, to taste the mushrooms properly. They made a delicious rich side to seitan sausages and potatoes.
