Eryngii Mushrooms & Lily Buds

I simply love mushrooms… anytime of the year since it’s widely mass cultivated, they are easily available all year round. The first time I saw this mushroom at supermarket, it was called ‘Drumstick Mushroom’ which was wrongly labeled even though it looked a bit like skinless chicken drumstick. Nevertheless, mushrooms are delicious! In Europe such mushrooms are considered exotic and very, very expensive compared to Chanterelle or Cepe. Well, still can’t beat the price of Black Truffles aka Black Gold though … :-D

Nowadays, Eryngii mushrooms or Pleurotus eryngii ( also known as King Trumpet or King Oyster mushroom ) are easily found in local supermarket or fresh market - mostly imported from Korea. When I was in Athens, I had a simple grilled Pleurotus which is another species of this Pleurotaceae family called Pleurotus ostreatus. I had a plate all for myself…hehehehe! If not for the price, I would order more. It's also a vegetarian dish by itself.

Close up view of the Eryngii mushrooms... they sure live up to the name!

Just look at the size of Eryngii mushrooms to my hand! That's about 250 g ±

I also realised that this unique mushroom looks a bit like scallop when you cut into 1/2 to 1 inch thick rounds! I even got my hubby fooled because he's not into bivalve mollusk and any sea creatures that look weird (like Geoduck....ewwwww) with tentacles or slugs! He should see his face when I serve the dish I cooked with the special 'scallops' :-D

Here's a simple and fast recipe for a vegetarian dish with Eryngii mushroom and edible Lily buds. Fast, because that's the only 2 things left in my fridge until my next grocery rounds :-P 

One thing to remember is to heat up your pan or wok really hot for a quick stir-fry method. Also, this dish has fragile lily buds. If you stir to hard, the buds break apart, turned soggy or brown when cooking too long. I like my vegetables crunchy and even raw if needed.

Note: Edible Lily Buds; I'm not sure of this species I used-it has yellow-orange petals. Could be Day Lilies and it's seasonal. So far, that's the only species I found locally.

Stir-Fry Eryngii Mushroom with Lily Buds

Ingredients:

200 g Lily Buds

100 g Eryngii Mushrooms

2 cloves Garlic

Cooking oil ( I used about 2 Tbl )

Soya Sauce/Tamari to taste

Oyster Sauce to taste - you can use also Vegetarian Oyster Sauce for vegetarians

Method:

1. Wash the lily buds under running water. Toss to dry. Clean the mushrooms with kitchen paper or a soft bristle brush to remove any grits. (I know some people wash mushrooms-it's their preferences. For me, I found that after cleaning with water before cutting makes them soggy and slippery.) Cut the mushrooms into 1/2 to 1 inch rounds.Put them aside.

2. Heat the pan/wok until it's very hot. Pour in the cooking oil. Add in the garlic and fry quickly until it's fragrant but not brown.

3. Add in the cut mushrooms; give it a quick stir. At this stage, you can add extra oil if you want if you feel it's too dry. 

4. Throw in the lily buds; becareful not to stir too hard because the buds are fragile. Stir too hard you may ended with broken buds instead of whole buds intact.

5. Splash a few dashes of soya sauce and oyster sauce to your taste; give another few stir and dish out to serve. 

You may add some Sesame Oil if you like before dish it out, to give the extra ooompph. In this recipe I used Kikkoman Special Fragrant Sauce. Not sure you can find that in Europe but it's easily to find in Asian countries. Still you can use tamari, Kikkoman All Purpose Soya Sauce or any soya sauce you fancy.

You can omit the garlic or add in slices  of onion if you want to. I thought I would use some carrots or tomatoes but can't find any lurking in my fridge; if not the dish would be colorful :-(

If you can't find edible lily flowers, you can replace it with any vegetables you love. Maybe throw in some fresh prawns, Surimi crab meat (imitation filament crabmeat made from fish meat) red chillies or capsicum? Yummmyy...