Knowledge Base > Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Half Hour)

This event was on Tuesday, October 03, 2023 at 11:00 am Pacific, 2:00 pm Eastern

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to cours… Read More.

Recorded

Question:

For the sautéed mushroom recipe, the directions are to add lemon juice when first starting to sauté the mushrooms. What is the purpose of adding lemon at this point in the process?

— Tyler Goss

Answer:

I know we have a many different ones in there. Um, now you do, you know, one of the things if you were to add lemon to uh, sauteed mushroom early in the process, it would help to brown the mushroom a little bit more. Um, but technically I would usually use the acid at the end of the dish now at the beginning of it. So if, um, you're uncomfortable with using the lemon in that you don't have to use it at all, you can add it to the end just to be able to add a little bit of brightness to it. Now the lemon will actually increase the flavor of the mushroom and help it kind of break down a little bit. That's why it turns brown a little bit. So you don't wanna, I usually don't add it too early because it can brown the mushrooms really quickly and it depends on what the color is you're looking for out of your mushrooms, but it can enhance the flavor a little bit more of that mushroom, giving a little bit more brightness to it and then giving you more of that umami flavor too at the same time. So that's probably what the purpose of adding that is early in that, but typically I would usually do it at the end just to get the brightness of flavor to that as well. Thanks for the question, Tyler.
Dan Marek

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

rouxbe.com