Question
Hilda P J
How do I treat dried Lion’s Mane mushrooms?
Answer
I buy it fresh most of the time, but if you're buying it dried, there are a couple of different use case scenarios for it. One of them is you can actually turn it into a powder just by putting it into a blender, and it's great to be able to add umami to things. You can basically take that powder and put it into a jar and store it for quite a long time, and then add it to different ingredients as you wish. Other ways to be able to use that are by rehydrating it, so you can just put it into a bowl of water. I usually put something on top of the mushroom to be able to make sure that it's steeping down in that water to let it rehydrate. And then you can use it like you do a regular lion's mane. It's definitely going to be a little more firm. You'd want to cut it, probably, and do some cooking on it to be able to make sure that that texture is getting back to something that's a little more treatable. On lion's mane, I usually like to do steaks out of them, so I will marinate the lion's mane. Usually, I do a soy tamari, maybe even a little beet powder to be able to give it a little bit of red to it as well. Maybe even a little smoked salt or liquid smoke onto it as well, too. And then I will do a sauté on that and basically treat it like a steak. I'll push the whole thing down, and then you can slice it up into thinner pieces to be able to put it on tacos or all kinds of different things to be able to make that happen. So a lot of different uses for lion's mane. Dried, just make sure that it will last longer, which is great. But you can use it a couple of different ways after you've dried it at the same time, too. Hope that helps, Hilda.
