Half-Shroom Burgers
Dave Konyndyk, co-owner of Parasol Mycology, provided these recipes. About the half-shroom burgers, he advises, “Cutting your ground beef with cooked mushrooms is a great way to stretch your supply, add flavor, and eat less red meat. The consistency of the burger patty is just the same as usual when you dry fry and press the mushrooms to cook the water out. Oyster mushrooms and some others are known to help control cholesterol, so having a sizeable helping with your burger is a win-win.“Cooking with cordyceps mushrooms is a bit more exotic. If you can find them fresh, they offer a strong earthy mushroom flavor. Much like an oyster mushroom, but without a hint of bitterness, they have a fairly firm consistency and retain a bit of a snap when you cook them down. We use our own farm-fresh organic cordyceps, grown on beds of brown rice and fed with honey, malt, and nutritional yeast. This recipe adds the cordyceps in last, to retain the unique shape, firmness, and bright orange color of the mushroom.”
Servings: 4
Ingredients
- 1 pound mushrooms cordyceps, gourmet oyster, lion’s mane, or ordinary button mushrooms, diced
- 1 pound ground beef
- 1 egg optional
- 1 poblano pepper finely diced (optional)
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Sharp white smoky cheddar highly recommended
Instructions
- Heat a seasoned cast iron or nonstick pan to medium-high. Add the diced mushrooms (you may wish to add a diced pepper while you’re at it), cover and cook on dry heat for several minutes until mushrooms begin to sweat. Stir continuously and press with a potato masher to drive off moisture until the mushrooms are mostly dry.
- In a bowl, combine ground beef, the (optional) egg, salt, and pepper, and mix by hand. Patties seem to stay together well enough even without the egg. Cook just like ordinary burgers. Melt some smoky cheddar on the burgers at the last minute for cheeseburgers.
Dave Konyndyk is co-owner of Parasol Mycology.
