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Chicken-of-the-Woods Mushrooms

Nutterbuster

Nutterbuster

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Where the skys are so blue!
Found like 15lbs of the stuff yesterday on an oak tree by a wood duck hole I was scouting. Never had it. After verifying that it wasn't going to kill me, I cooked it as follows.

First, take a piece and wash it thoroughly. Folks say to check for bugs. Mine was pretty clean. Just bark and leaves.

Cut it into strips or nuggets.

Melt a couple of tablespoons of butter on medium-high heat. Add shrooms. Cook for 5ish minutes or so while tossing.

Season with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

Then add a half cup or so of chicken broth and a splash of white wine vinegar. Cover and cook until the mushrooms are tender. I've made a few batches and found that some of the mushrooms are tougher than others and require more cooking.

Surprisingly, "tastes just like chicken" actually applies for once. Similar flavor...eerily chickenish stringy texture...nice and juicy...if I wasn't paying attention and was served it in say, fajitas or something, I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference.
 
i recently stumbled on something i thought was chicken of the woods. thankfully i did NOT harvest it, as it turned out to be jackolantern mushroom, pretty similar looking but poisonous (it'll give you violent diarrhea for 2-3 days i'm told) so yeah, if you don't know what it is for sure, don't mess with it! i hear chicken of the woods is pretty tasty though.

Edited to attach a pic of the jack-o'-lantern mushroom
 

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Nutterbuster said:
Yes, but it comes with a disclaimer.

Most of life in the civilized world has been pretty well dummy-proofed. But picking and eating wild mushrooms can be a good way to die a bad death.
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Man, that is the dadgum truth! I take my fair share of risks afield, whether it's hiking into new areas with no cell service after dark, climbing 20 feet up a tree with a weapon, etc., but one thing I just don't mess with is mushrooms I can't identify with 100% certainty. That list contains exactly one mushroom: morels. Other than those, I leave it for somebody else. That said, I'm glad you enjoyed these and didn't die!
 
TNbowhunter said:
Man, that is the dadgum truth! I take my fair share of risks afield, whether it's hiking into new areas with no cell service after dark, climbing 20 feet up a tree with a weapon, etc., but one thing I just don't mess with is mushrooms I can't identify with 100% certainty. That list contains exactly one mushroom: morels. Other than those, I leave it for somebody else. That said, I'm glad you enjoyed these and didn't die!
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Same. I don't like mushrooms much anyway so the risk/reward ratio just isn't there for me.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 
I love mushrooms. Been getting into others in the recent years since I moved.
 
TNbowhunter said:
Man, that is the dadgum truth! I take my fair share of risks afield, whether it's hiking into new areas with no cell service after dark, climbing 20 feet up a tree with a weapon, etc., but one thing I just don't mess with is mushrooms I can't identify with 100% certainty. That list contains exactly one mushroom: morels. Other than those, I leave it for somebody else. That said, I'm glad you enjoyed these and didn't die!
Click to expand...

Same boat for me. I absolutely love morels and pick at least 40lbs a year while turkey hunting.
I would probably pick mushrooms more often but my confidence in identifying edible varieties are lacking.
 
Found some chicken of the woods in September here in Wisco. Battered them in chik fil a knock off recipe I found online. They tasted like legit chicken nuggets. My favorite mushroom! And not many deadly look alikes.
 
It's been a very long time but my grandparents and i used to go pick chanterelles...they are pretty easy to identify...false gills good, real gills bad..bad guys grow in clusters and the good 1s are individual and chanterelles grow right outta the ground, not on decaying wood....u find them in oak hammocks
The chanterelles gills are like folds, the gills can't separate or be torn off individually but the jack o lantern has real gills that u can separate out and u can tear the gills off individually...
 
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Just to get the record straight, mushrooms are not that dangerous. only a little over 1% of all mushrooms are deadly. Most of the other inedible ones will make your I sides churn for some days,but that's it. Still,don't eat any that you are not sure about.
 
We usually eat some fresh and freeze the rest. I'm no expert, but I read that you can freeze them without cooking and that seems to have worked well so far for me.
 
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