Fried Oyster Mushroom Tacos

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Jeff Benda

Contributor at Harvesting Nature

Cooking gives me a creative outlet to transform wild game and bring it into traditional recipes from around the world to help expand people's perceptions.My goal is to celebrate local fish and wild game and provide achievable, bright recipes designed to build confidence for new cooks, and inspire everyone to elevate their cooking.

I hope that by sharing and celebrating the food I create with the fish and wild game I harvest, I can highlight the great contribution so many hunters and anglers have made to conservation in this country, and reflect the freedom we have to enjoy America's great outdoors.

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I’m a mushroom lover and foraging for them is a new favorite pastime. I recently packed up my wife and daughter and traveled from Fargo, North Dakota to Olympic National Park in Washington for 10 days of tent camping, hiking, and foraging.

Oyster mushrooms were easy to find and easy to identify, growing on trees and logs right along many of the hiking trails. The most abundant spot was in the Hoh Rain Forest near Forks, Washington. Within minutes, we had filled a quart-size bag to take home.

This recipe is perfect for your next Taco Tuesday. It has traditional taco ingredients, but also lets the mushrooms shine, turning them crispy and meaty. When our daughter tasted them, she swore it was chicken. Just a note – you want to fry them longer than you think – for about 6 or 7 minutes.

For the Chipotle Mayo, you’ll see I used a little Taco Bell Chipotle Sauce instead of opening up an entire can of Chipotle peppers. That’s because I don’t like opening an entire can of peppers if I only need a little bit, and then see the remaining peppers go unused and moldy in the back of the fridge. I’ve tried freezing what’s left in the can. But then I just find the tiny bag of peppers 2 years later, hidden under a package of deer shanks.

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Fried Oyster Mushroom Tacos

Recipe by Jeff BendaCourse: Wild Recipes

Servings

4

servings

Prep time

30

minutes

Cooking time

40

minutes

Ingredients

• 2 cups oyster mushrooms

• 1 cup flour

• 1 teaspoon salt

• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper

• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder

• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

• 1/2 teaspoon cumin

• 1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika

• 1 egg, beaten

• 1/4 cup milk

• Canola oil, for frying

• Taco Ingredients

• 8 corn or flour tortillas

• 1 cup pico de gallo

• 1 cup guacamole

• 1 cup Queso Fresco cheese

• 1 cup fresh spinach

• 1 cup fresh cilantro, chopped

• 2 radish, sliced thin

• 1 lime
• Chipotle Mayo Ingredients

• 1/4 cup Hellman’s Real Mayonnaise

• 1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt

• 1 Tablespoon lime juice

• 2 Tablespoons Taco Bell Creamy Chipotle Sauce

• 1/4 teaspoon salt

• 1/4 teaspoon sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon cumin

Preparation

• Slice large oyster mushrooms in half but keep small ones whole. Rinse them off and pat dry with paper towels.
• Put the flour and all the seasonings in a bowl. Whisk together the milk and eggs in another bowl.
• You can choose to pour enough canola oil into a deep fryer like I did. Or you can pour enough into a cast iron Dutch oven to come up to 2-inches. Heat this to 350°F.
• As the oil is heating, dust the mushrooms in the seasoned flour, into the egg wash, then into the flour again. Shake off the excess flour and fry. You want the oyster mushrooms to be fully cooked so fry them for at least 6 to 7 minutes.
• When they’re done, move the oyster mushrooms to a paper towel to drain.
• Serve on warm tortillas with your favorite taco toppings like the ones listed in this recipe.