Chicken Fried Oyster Mushrooms w/ Nikkei-Style Dipping Sauce

Imagine Peruvian fried chicken but with Pleurotus ostreatus.

Chicken Fried Oyster Mushrooms. Photo: Nicholas Gill.

It’s been quite dry this summer in the northeastern United States and fungal activity hasn’t been particularly interesting. At least not for me anyway. Last year, mushrooms were all over the place. I would walk my kids to the bus stop, which is the end of my driveway, and on many occasions I could gather enough mushrooms for lunch and dinner. This year has been more sporadic. There were some high points early in the season, but the rest of the summer was much quieter. As the rains have picked up, the mushrooms have come out again in greater numbers.

You’ll read more about mushrooms next week, but I wanted to share this bonus recipe for paid subscribers. The other day I found a load of Pleurotus pulmonarius, nicknamed lung oyster mushrooms, which aren’t a true oyster mushroom, but they are quite similar in texture and taste. Oyster mushrooms (Pleurotus ostreatus) are one of the more common edible mushrooms you can forage for and cultivated forms are readily available too. They don’t taste like oysters, though their shell-like shape often resembles them.

My haul was quite large and I’ll dehydrate most of my mushrooms to use in the winter, but for immediate use I fried them like you might a chicken thigh with Peruvian seasonings on the streets of Lima and a simple Nikkei-style dipping sauce. I’ll be honest, I was impressed at how well this turned out.