You cook a pan of mushrooms and within two minutes, the pan floods. Where there was sizzle, now there's simmer. The mushrooms swim in their own liquid, pale and sad, refusing to brown.
But that liquid isn't the problem. It's information. Mushrooms are teaching you about themselves, telling you what they're made of. They're up to 90% water, held in a structure so delicate that heat immediately begins to collapse it. Those cells rupture. The water escapes.
The mistake is treating that liquid like an enemy.
In restaurant kitchens, we called it mushroom liquor. Not waste. An ingredient. The water carries everything the mushroom releases when heat breaks down its cell walls. Glutamates. Minerals. The essence of umami concentrated into liquid form. Pour it down the drain, and you pour away the reason you cooked mushrooms in the first place.
You have two options. Here's what to do instead.
When the mushrooms release their liquid, let them simmer in it. The pan will look like soup. Keep cooking. The water will reduce, thicken slightly, and turn golden. The mushrooms will darken as the liquid evaporates. When the pan is nearly dry again, that's when the sizzle returns. That's when the Maillard reaction begins. The mushrooms will brown. They'll develop the deep, savory crust everyone wants. But now that crust carries all the flavor that was in the water.
Or you can save the liquid. When the mushrooms have released everything they're going to release, tilt the pan and spoon out the liquor before it evaporates. Pour it into a jar. Store it in the refrigerator. Use it like you'd use stock.
Add it to risotto instead of another ladle of broth. Stir it into scrambled eggs before they set. Use it to deglaze a pan after searing steak. Mix it into pasta water for an immediate depth that takes regular water hours of simmering bones to achieve. Reduce it by half and it becomes a sauce base. Reduce it by three-quarters and it's nearly a glaze.
The liquid also tells you about the mushrooms themselves. Fresh mushrooms release clear or pale golden water. Old mushrooms release cloudy, sometimes grayish liquid. Mushrooms stored wet release more water than mushrooms stored dry. Thick-fleshed species like maitake and lion's mane release less than thin-fleshed oysters. You learn to read what the pan tells you.
Some chefs like to start mushrooms in a dry pan, no oil. Let them release all their water first. Cook it off completely. Then add fat and brown them. The technique works and the mushrooms brown, but you lose the liquor.
Next time the pan floods with water, watch what happens. Watch the color change. Notice when the sizzle returns. Taste a spoonful of that liquid before it disappears. It doesn't taste like water. It tastes like mushrooms, concentrated and pure.
LATE SEASON SURVIVORS
November mushrooms are different. They've earned their place. While summer species fruit in abundance, pushing out flush after flush, these late-season survivors appear sparingly. They know the cold is coming.
Walk the same woods you walked in October, and you'll still find oysters. They prefer the cold now. Look on dead standing trees, on stumps, on logs that have begun to soften. Gray oysters, sometimes yellow. Clustered tightly against the bark where they trap their own humidity. The cold makes them denser, meatier. Better than their summer versions.
Wood ear mushrooms laugh at frost. They'll be there through December if the winter stays mild. Thin and ruffled on dead elder branches, on fallen hardwoods. They look delicate, but they're not. Touch one, and it feels like leather, like something that could withstand winter. In Asia, they're called cloud ear, wood ear, black fungus. Here, they're mostly ignored. But bring them home, slice them thin, and they add texture to everything. Stir fries. Soups. They don't taste like much alone. They taste like whatever you cook them with, while adding a bit of chew.
Late hen of the woods might still be findable at the base of oaks. Past prime now, tougher than September's clusters, but still good if you find them young enough. The edges will be turning brown. The fronds will feel less tender. But the stems still work. Trim the tough parts. Use what's good.
The rest have gone underground. The mycelium persists below the frost line, waiting. It doesn't die. It pauses. Come spring, when the soil warms and the rain returns, it will fruit again. But for now, November offers what November offers. Not abundance. Presence. A few species that don't mind the cold, that see opportunity where others see the end of the season.
This is the time to learn those species. The ones that don't compete with the flush of spring or the plenty of fall. The quiet ones. The ones that wait for the woods to empty before they emerge.
Bundle up. They're still out there.
November asks us to pay attention differently. To notice what persists rather than what proliferates. To use what we're given instead of wishing for something else.
The mushrooms are still teaching. We just have to slow down enough to learn.
Until next week.
—Jeremy