The short answer
- Seal the mushrooms with butter, herbs and salt and cook them at 85 °C for 30 minutes: tender and juicy, not soggy.
- Mushrooms cook at the vegetable temperature, not at the low temperatures used for meat.
- Seal them just before cooking: raw mushrooms don't keep in a vacuum bag.
- Only cook wild mushrooms you can identify with complete certainty.
Why sous vide suits mushrooms
In a pan, mushrooms first give off their water and stew in it before they brown. Sealed in a bag, they cook in their own juices and the butter, and nothing escapes: the flavour stays in the mushrooms and the sauce, and they keep a pleasant bite.
Swiss browns, button and oyster mushrooms work all year; pine mushrooms and slippery jacks in autumn, if you know them well (see the warning below); chanterelles wherever you can get them.
Recipe: mushrooms in herb butter on toast
Ingredients
400g mushrooms, 40g butter, 1 tablespoon olive oil, 1 small garlic clove finely chopped, 3 sprigs of thyme, salt and pepper. To serve: a baguette or sourdough, olive oil, parsley or a squeeze of lemon.
1 · Clean
Brush off any soil or wipe the mushrooms with paper towel; they soak up water when washed. Halve large ones so all the pieces are about the same size.
2 · Seal
Mushrooms, butter in small pieces, oil, garlic, thyme, salt and pepper into a bag, spread in one layer, then seal.
Helps: R-Vac bags
3 · Cook at 85 °C for 30 minutes
Into the preheated bath, fully under water.
Helps: PreserVide HydroMix
4 · Toast and serve
Toast the bread with a little olive oil. Shake the bag to mix the butter and juices, spoon the mushrooms over the toast and finish with parsley or a squeeze of lemon.
More ideas
- 1
As a sideStraight from the bag with a steak or roast chicken: the butter is the sauce.
- 2
Through pasta or risottoStir the mushrooms and their juices through at the end.
- 3
Browned as wellFor colour, tip them into a very hot pan for a minute after the bath.
Wild mushrooms: only what you know. Deadly mushrooms grow in Australia, among them the death cap, often found under oak trees and easily mistaken for edible species. Only cook wild mushrooms you can identify with complete certainty; if in doubt, don't eat them. Suspected poisoning: call the Poisons Information Centre on 13 11 26.
LAVA AustraliaOfficial LAVA distributor and vacuum-packaging specialists since 2018.
