One of the premium online food vendors recently had a special on matsutake mushrooms. That translates to "pine mushroom" because they are found near roots of pine trees. They have wacky growing requirements and Japanese people treat them like we treat truffles.
Anyway, turns out they grow well in the PNW and so I got a pound. That was 14 shrooms. Fourteen weird shrooms. They look kinda like King Oyster mushrooms or even a little like porcini: stubby caps, thick long stems, only one of the shrooms actually had gills (the rest had not torn their veil yet).
The bigger ones were significantly heavier than the less-big ones. The two biggest ones, together, weighed 4 oz., about the same as six smaller ones.
They are delivered unwashed as they are fussy to clean so you don't clean them until you're doing the mise.
Once clean, these things are really dense. Even with a very sharp knife, I have to press a bit and the flesh squeaks against the blade. The stems are fibrous or, at least, have a pronounced grain so you can shred them with your fingers.
The aroma is... odd. Earthy, funky, maybe a little herbal, very Japanese in its spare way. (Unkind adjectives might lean towards feet and ammonia.) It's not particularly strong or pungent but it's not mild and faded, either.
So far, I've made gohan, and an enhanced chicken broth, and I sizzled one in a pan. (Nobody recommends using butter to fry them so I used vegetable oil.)
Gohan is just rice made with dashi and you float the sliced matsutake on top; the slices will simmer and steam as the rice cooks. This was weird but tasty.
For the enhanced broth, I took commercial broth, simmered it an hour with leek/carrot/celery, removed them, then simmered shredded shroom in the broth for 5 minutes. I will use this as an ingredient soon.
The seared shroom cooked up prettily. The dense texture served it well as it was very meaty (probably chewier than the venison chops that followed it into the pan!). However, the flavor is not enticing. I'm going to bail on doing any more of them this way.
I have one more recipe to try: slice the shroom thickly then load it into a parchment envelope with some aromatics and oil, and steam it in the oven a bit.
, all chunked and stirred in a slurry of soy, mirin, sesame oil, lime juice, sesame seeds, and tempura bits -- using the matsutake rice. The poke was good; the rice was rice.