mushrooms Archives - cooking melbourne

Lion’s Mane

Would you put something called lion’s mane on your dinner menu? It may look like a large ball of fluff or a lion’s mane but in reality it is quite a meaty textured mushroom. Lion’s mane is one of the new gourmet mushroom varieties available around Melbourne farmers’ markets, along with coloured oyster mushrooms, nameko,…

Mushroom Risotto With Truffle Butter

It’s wild mushroom time again and pine mushrooms and slippery jacks provide perfect flavour and texture for a risotto. But if you want to raise the bar another notch, a mushroom risotto finished with some truffle butter can add a wonderful extra dimension to your mushroom taste experience. Truffle butter is subtle, adding that special…

Slippery Jack Pithivier It Is

Some of us will have fond memories of Melbourne’s restaurant scene of decades past, where small BYO places produced stunning dishes out of tiny galley kitchens without a sous vide in sight. Others, like Stephanie’s and Mietta’s, were more opulent, cast in the French mould of formal dining and highly worked dishes. It was really…

Forest Pizza

Forest pizza is my name for pizza topped with Slippery Jack mushrooms (Suillus luteus), foraged from Victorian pine forests. This forest pizza will delight mushroom lovers as it really brings out the flavour of the Slippery Jacks. You can also add a few other cultivated varieties such as nameko, shimeji or chestnut mushrooms for added…

Local Fresh Truffles Becoming A Craze

Now is the time to buy some local fresh truffles. There are a few producers around Melbourne now selling their little fungal gems at farmers’ markets, online or as part of a truffle hunt, tasting and cooking masterclass package. Black Cat Truffles, Black Truffle Harvest and Yarra Valley Truffles are just a few producers of…