In a few days I will be making my mom’s old tetrazzini recipe to use up some Thanksgiving leftovers. Like many recipes from that era, it calls for canned mushrooms. While I have nothing against the canned variety, I happen to have to have some fresh mushrooms on hand that need to be used up, so I’d rather use those instead. Since the recipe was written for canned mushrooms, should I cook the fresh ones first? Or just throw them in the sauce?
I wouldnt cook them.
Seems like they’ll get cooked enough in the sauce.
Cook them separately for sure. Quartered or sliced in a dry pan. Ok, maybe a little butter or olive oil. They’ll be ready for sauce when they’re dry, then wet, then dry again.
@jnglmassiv gives you excellent advice here. I’d do exactly the same, only a light sprinkle of salt added. They’ll be wonderfully flavorful in your tetrazzini.
Not that I disagree with @jnglmassiv or @Aspenglow, but for those silently following along, canned mushrooms are almost always already “cooked” so pre-cooking fresh mushrooms is a given to accurately replace the canned, especially considering how much moisture they give off during said cooking process. No one* wants a soggy tetrazzini!
-*- I’m positive there’s someone out there, probably on this very board that exists to contradict me, so getting it out of the way, yes, there are people who like different things than me!
You do need to cook the mushrooms before you add them to the tetrazzini. I do that with a mix of olive oil and butter in a large skillet with onions and garlic.
What most everyone else has said here. You don’t want undercooked mushrooms in your tettrazzini. Give them a nice saute first.
I firmly agree with the advice here: fresh mushrooms should be cooked before using them in this kind of an application. As stated, the canned mushrooms would have been pre-cooked and could be dumped in at various points, but the fresh mushrooms have tons of moisture. Depending on the specific type of mushroom, I typically cook them with a generous handful of salt to help draw that moisture out.
But that last phrase there, “the specific type of mushroom,” is important. The OP doesn’t specify.
When I think canned mushrooms, this typically means “button” type. Like this.
So I assume the OP has a basket of a similar kind of mushrooms, like cremini or some such. (“Button” mushrooms are almost always just young cremini mushrooms that haven’t turned brown yet.) These are creminis:
Given that (a) you’re making tetrazzini, which typically calls for this kind of mushroom, and (b) this is the most common year-round type of mushroom in American supermarkets, I think it’s safe to assume the above. In which case, yes, halve or quarter or slice (depending on size) and then cook as noted.
I’m just asking to verify, on the off chance you’ve got chanterelles or matsutakes or something (since we’re at the tail end of their seasons). These would still be pre-cooked, but a little more gently than the cremini type, since they have a more delicate texture and/or flavor.
The only thing I would add to this is that I recently learned there is a fourth stage, past second dry. I think of the stages of cooking mushrooms as:
- Soft
- Soggy
- Squeaky
- Savory
Once they are dry again, cook them further until they brown. There is a lot of extra flavor in that final step, when they become toasty and roasty and meaty.
I get what you’re saying but I think savory is a degree of squeaky, how dry is dry. We could add more levels, say,
- Scorch
- aSh
I did a pound of button mushrooms twice in the last week. Fat dice, dry in a deep sided 16" skillet (the big one that doesn’t fit in the primary pan cabinet) with a half dozen sprigs of fresh thyme, some pepper,. Medium heat and can leave be for 5-10 minutes. What used to be an inch and a half layer is half as deep. Gentle stir and 5-10 more mins. Where’d they all go? Barely enough to cover the bottom!
One batch went into a cream and parm sauce with zucchini, magnificent, if I do say. Last night’s was for red sauce which turned out C+ at best. I do like the proportion: pound/500g pasta : pound mushrooms.
Yes, that is the kind of mushroom I have.
(When buying canned mushrooms my mom ways gets the “pieces and stems”, because they’re, you know, cheaper. I know they’re the same variety, but I’m amused that that’s the picture you chose to represent the canned type, because Mom would never buy those “fancy” whole mushrooms.)
FYI, today’s (or was it yesterday’s?) NYTimes’ turkey tetrazzini recipe agrees with this.
What I was getting at is that once they’re dry, cooking them longer browns them–it’s different from the drying process.