Monterey Dried Porcini Mushrooms

Once, pre-blogging, I made Baked Chicken Risotto. It was one of the first "hard" recipes I'd done and I distinctly remember why it wasn't great. It was the mushrooms. Rather, it was my poor preparation of said mushrooms. I'd forgotten about that until just now. Let me show you what I should've done so you don't wind up with gritty food should you use dried porcinis.

First, let's check out the mushrooms themselves. Monterey brand porcini mushrooms come in a clamshell package sort of like so many of the fresh herbs I get. When you open the package, you get to check out the dry, wood-like mushrooms. Each one looks so different from the others, I'd speculate if they really were the same type of mushroom had I not known.

Under the mushrooms is the package insert.

In case you can't read tiny print even after clicking on the photo, this is what it says:

PORCINI MUSHROOMS: (Boletus Edulis) are a very popular mushroom throughout Europe and the United States. The flavor of a Porcini spreads quickly to the taste buds; it is a strong flavor with subtle undertones. The flavor can be almost addicting. Dried Porcini are very economical as the flavor is much more concentrated than the fresh variety. Porcini is graded by size, color, aroma, and variety. Our Porcini Super Grade are the largest, lightest in color and truest in aroma we have found.

SUGGESTED USES: Porcini are delicious in soups, sauces, stuffings and stews. Dried Porcini can be substituted for any mushroom in any recipe; typically a smaller amount of dried Porcini can be used in recipes than other mushrooms because of the intense flavor of the Porcini. A recipe suggestion is located on the reverse side of this card.

STORE: Store in a cool, dark place. Shelf life is 6 to 12 months, or can be extended by freezing.

RECONSTITUTION: To reconstitute, blanch in boiling water for 2-5 minutes, or soak 30 minutes in lukewarm water, wine or consumme. 1 ounce of reconstituted mushrooms equals 4 ounces of fresh Porcini Mushrooms.

So here is essentially the first step of the next recipe I'm going to execute.

Microwave one cup of water until it is nearly boiling; add the entire package of mushrooms.

They'll float. Stir them around a little bit so each one is wet. Let stand 20 minutes so the mushrooms get fully saturated.

Meanwhile, prepare your filtering system, such as a coffee filter placed on top of a fat separator.

Transfer the mushrooms and liquid to the filter, in batches. The filter might get clogged with grit and you'll need to change it out once or twice.

After filtering, I reserved the 3/4 cups of filtrate per the recipe instructions.

And then, now this is key, I transferred the mushrooms to a colander and rinsed them very well to ensure there was no grit left. Chewing on grit sucks. A lot. Especially when you have a full pot of what would otherwise be delicious.

That's that, your mushrooms are reconstituted and ready to roll.

Monterey Dried Porcini Mushrooms, available in the produce section at Ralph's for $3.99/1-oz container. That beats the price of the organic porcini mushrooms Ralph's used to carry.

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