Stuffed Mushroom Pickles

 Stuffed Mushroom Pickles

I have always hated mushrooms. They are nasty things whose cousins can grow on your feet. They taste like a sponge and are, all around, not a food ingredient. I believed all of this for 36 years because my mother told me so. Turns out the woman lied. Ok, not totally. I am still am not a huge fan, but they are growing on me. No pun intended. To date there are only two ways I will eat a mushroom. One is ground up in a meatball or ravioli. The other is as a pickle. 

I love pickles. I will try just about anything in pickle form. I am not sure why but I found picked, stuffed mushrooms appealing.  I was watching Barefoot Friends (a cheesy, Korean, reality TV show complete with subtitles) and one of the episodes had mushroom pickles.... Stuffed, Mushroom Pickles. This changed the ball game. They looked appealing; this is a first for me. I normally look at a recipe and try to figure out how to remove or replace the mushrooms. But these were different. They were visually stunning.  Unfortunately, this was not a cooking show, there was no recipe. All I knew was that the guy cooking used King Oyster Mushrooms, scallion and peppers….no idea what the pickling spice was. So after a long, drawn out search I found something similar I could adapt to my experiment.

Turns out when all is said and done, these are some delicious pickles, wonderful sliced and thrown in a kimchi soup or a nice ramen soup. I was shocked I liked them since I am texturally handicapped with some foods.They still have a bit of the spongy mushroom texture but the scallion and pepper in the middle give the needed crunch.

I have to admit they look a bit better when stuffed with multiple colors and then sliced after pickling. But either way they are delish. 

So how are they made?

Ingredients:

1lb Package King Oyster Mushrooms

½ cup canola oil

1 tbs sesame oil

1 bunch scallion

1 Orange and yellow Pepper

1 red hot pepper of choice (I skipped the hot pepper in the first batch because I was out, but they are defiantly well worth adding in the second batch)

1 cup Rice wine vinegar

¼ cup Shoyu (soy sauce)

2 cloves garlic

¼ cup sugar

½ cup cider vinegar

Water

Cut the heads off of each mushroom. In a pan heat the oils. Place the mushroom into the hot oil and watch carefully. Turn over as each side gets to a golden brown. When all sides are brown removed and place on a paper towel to drain.

Poke a spoon handle, chopstick or your finger through the stem of the mushroom and stuff with a piece of scallion and a thin slice of all types of pepper. Place into a container and cover with vinegar/sugar/shoyu solution, drop in the cloves of garlic and let sit in the refrigerator for at least 2 days then eat. I like to slice mine into rounds and add them to all sorts of dishes.

Yes I realize I said they look visually stunning, they did on the show, there were multiple colors inside and they were sliced really pretty. Mine look like the ugly step sisters. Don't let that stop you though. They taste amazing. The pickled bell of the ball.