It is a sign of how sophisticated we are becoming, both as consumers and cooks, that we are now demanding greater variety and quality in our shopping basket, and luckily, small specialist companies are blossoming in order to meet the demand.
If you want proof of this, take a look at how our shops and supermarkets are now stocking an ever greater variety of Irish-grown and imported exotic mushrooms.
Companies such as Garrett and Mark O'Connor's Gourmet Mushroom Company, based in Tara, Co Meath, believe that "once there is a consistent supply of quality exotic mushrooms on the shop shelf, the Irish consumer (getting ever more adventurous) will open the recipe book and have a try". The O'Connors are now the principal suppliers of exotic mushrooms to Tesco supermarkets, so their mushrooms are easy to find.
I think the O'Connors are right, and certainly the quality of their mushrooms would convert anyone into a fungi-lover. Lovely shiitake, fine feathery white oyster, and good wild mushrooms such as the luxurious girolles and pieds de mouton, are a gift to the cook.
And what the mushroom cook needs to understand is a very simple fact: you don't do anything different to an exotic mushroom than you would do with a standard button or field mushroom. You simply use the mushrooms in a conventional way, but allow them to give you a whole range of flavours beyond the mass-market mushrooms.
When you cook with mushrooms, what you realise is how much they want a suitable partner, and that partner can be something as straightforward as potatoes - as in the recipe for mushroom and potato gratin we give below. It can be as obvious as eggs - an omelette made with exotic mushrooms is a dream.
Mushrooms also love shellfish, especially prawns. And mushrooms love greens, as Paul Flynn, of the Tannery restaurant in Dungarvan, pointed out on these pages a few weeks back.
It is only in restaurants that you will come across the mushrooms produced by another exciting Irish company specialising in mushrooms. Near Doneraile, in north Co Cork, Fran and Jim Fraser run Forest Mushrooms, producing beautiful varieties of king oyster, nameko, beech oyster, enoki, shiitake and wine caps. But, even while these mushrooms might seem to be too much of a stroll on the wild side, the key factor of these exotics is their subtlety. They adapt beautifully to a wide range of culinary partners, and one person who reveals their magic is William O'Callaghan, of Longueville House, just outside Mallow, Co Cork - his prawn broth with enoki and oyster mushrooms is just one of his dishes inspired by the Frasers's mushrooms.
The greater availability of exotic mushrooms in our supermarkets and restaurants will be the key that converts us into a nation of fungiphiles. In a few years time, we will take the presence of exotic mushrooms for granted, but it will be the pioneering work of small specialist companies which will have opened our taste buds to these marvellous, quixotic delights.
Mushroom and Potato Gratin
As Jane Grigson points out in her splendid book The Mushroom Feast: "the affinity between potatoes and mushrooms is remarkable". Indeed it is. This is virtually a meal in itself. I like to cook it with a mixture of mushrooms, which gives each bite a different flavour, and I prefer to cut the potatoes by hand, rather than work with the very thin slices produced by a food processor or grater.
Serves six to eight
2 1/2 lbs waxy potatoes, peeled or scraped
1-2lbs mixed, exotic mushrooms
salt, pepper
1 clove garlic
butter
4 tablespoons finely chopped onion
about 4 tablespoons chopped parsley
6 tablespoons grated Gruyere cheese
half pint whipping or single cream
Slice the potatoes thinly (the cucumber blade of the grater does this well). Slice the mushrooms not quite so thinly. Season both with salt and pepper. Rub an oval gratin dish with garlic and butter. Alternate layers of potatoes and mushrooms, sprinkling each one with onion, parsley, and cheese, reserving a few tablespoons of cheese for the top. Pour on the cream, scatter remaining cheese over the whole thing, and dot with butter. Cook in a low oven, mark 3, 325F, 163C for one and three-quarter hours, lowering the temperature when the dish begins to bubble hard. Serve in the cooking pot.
Preserving mushrooms
Mushrooms have a very short shelf life when picked. If you find yourself with a glut of them - perhaps you've picked them yourself from the woods - then one method of preserving them is to cook them in a huge amount of butter (250g butter to every 750g mushrooms) in which you have previously sauted a couple of finely chopped onions. The sauted mushrooms can then be frozen, and used as the basis for sauces and stocks.
Another excellent way of preserving mushrooms is to make a mushrooms pickle, where the fungi are preserved in oil. With this method you will always have a good store of wild mushrooms to hand to use in salads, gratins or casseroles.
Pickled Mushrooms in Oil
This is the classic Italian way of keping mushrooms, and it is spectacularly good, giving you perfect mushrooms and a wonderfully flavoured olive oil.
1 litre (2 pints) good white wine vinegar
500ml (1 pint) water
2 tablespoons salt
5 bay leaves
10 cloves
Bring the brine ingredients to the boil, add the mushrooms and boil for 5-10 minutes, depending on the kind of mushrooms. Drain the mushrooms and, without using your hands because the mushrooms are now sterilized, spread on a very clean cloth to cool and dry for a few hours. Sterilize jars which can be tightly closed. Put a few mushrooms into a jar, pour in a little olive oil to cover them and (using the same spoon for each operation) mix gently so that the oil reaches all parts of the mushrooms. Add more mushrooms and more oil in the same way until the jar is full, close the lid tightly and keep for at least a month before use. Once opened, a jar should be used up fairly rapidly.
The Gourmet Mushroom Company, Rathfeigh Farm, Tara, Co Meath. Tel: 0419825026. Website: www.gourmetmushco.ie
Forest Mushrooms, Doneraile, Co Cork. Tel: 022-24105