Crisped Polypore Chips with Fried Rosemary
Foraged shelf mushroom sliced thin and cooked slow in oil until it snaps.
- calories
- 140
- weight
- 1.5 oz
- cal / oz
- 93
- protein
- 2 g
- serves
- 2, scales
- prep
- 5 min
- cook
- 10 min
- total time
- 15 min
- water
- none
- cost
- $
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Snack
- Canister stove
- Campfire coals
- Liquid fuel
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Backpacking
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Grab and go
- Day one only
- Basic
Ingredients
| Berkeley's polypore, tender outer edge | about 2 cups sliced | only the young margin, roughly the outer 2 inches; older growth is wood |
|---|---|---|
| Cooking oil | 5 tsp | olive or any high-smoke-point oil in a leakproof bottle |
| Rosemary | 1 sprig | about 10 leaves, stripped from the stem |
| Kosher salt | a pinch | |
| Ground black pepper | a few grinds |
Method
- Trim the tender outer margin off the cap and slice it as thin as your knife allows. Thin is the whole recipe. Thick slices stay leathery.
- Strip the rosemary leaves off the stem and set them aside.
- Warm the oil in the pan over a low flame. Not hot enough to spit.
- Add the mushroom slices and stir until they wilt and give up water.
- Keep the flame low and keep stirring, every minute or so, for 8 to 10 minutes. The slices go from limp to gold to brittle as the water leaves.
- Drop in the rosemary leaves near the end. They crisp in under a minute and burn shortly after.
- Kill the heat, salt and pepper, eat straight from the pan.
This is a moisture-removal problem, not a browning problem. Firm polypores are most water, and if you cook them fast the water steams out around them and you get rubber. Low heat and a long stir drive the water off gradually, and what’s left is concentrated mushroom that crisps in the oil it’s sitting in.
Age matters more than technique. Only the outer couple of inches of a young cap are worth slicing; past that the flesh is tough enough to be genuinely unpleasant. The rosemary goes in last because it crisps in seconds and turns bitter not long after. Nothing here keeps, so this is a first-night camp snack, cooked from what you carried out of the woods that day.
Packing
Mushrooms go in a paper bag or mesh sack, never plastic, or they sweat and slime by afternoon. Cook them the day you pick them. Oil rides in a dropper bottle, salt and pepper in a film canister.
Variations
- Pheasant back or black-staining polypore work the same way. Any firm shelf mushroom that slices paper-thin will do.
- Swap in thyme or sage, or add a knife tip of minced garlic and a pinch of red pepper flakes.
- Stop at light brown instead of brittle and you have sautéed mushrooms to spoon over rice or fish.
https://foragerchef.com/berkeleys-polypore-recipe