Crowd the Pan: A Genius, Calmer Way to Cook Mushrooms

Most of the time, cooking mushrooms is the story of trying to understand—of texture management, shrinkage, and wait… where did all the butter go?

Alex Raij's Mushroom Confit (Setas Confitadas)

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If you’re looking for classic sautéed mushrooms, Julia Child’s no-nonsense method will coax you through all this—hot butter, dry mushrooms, and an uncrowded pan are the keys.

But say you want to cook a lot of mushrooms at once, really outrun the shrinkage. Or to be less active in your cooking, and less hot. Then Alex Raij, chef-owner at Txikito, El Quinto Pino, La Vara, and Tekoá has a more scalable, meditative approach, with just as compelling an outcome: Cover all your mushrooms in olive oil with salt and a bit of smashed garlic in a big pot, then let them cook as slowly as you can until they’re tender.

What kind of mushrooms, you ask? “I like oyster mushrooms but any are good, even button,” Raij wrote me. “All of them shrink a bit so ‘buy big’ so you aren't splitting peas.”

She calls these setas confitadas, or confited mushrooms, in her new cookbook The Basque Book, or you could rightly call the technique oil-poaching, as my friend Marian Bull did when she recently wrote about it over on The Awl.

It’s for the days when you want to listen to Simon and Garfunkel in the kitchen, not DeBarge (just me?). When you want to let your mind wander, and tend to anything else, while the mushrooms blurp quietly in the background. (This, as Raij points out, it actually not the oil simmering—it’s the mushrooms’ internal moisture slowly releasing as they soften and condense.)

Setas confitadas won’t have the brown, crispy faces of more active mushroom sauté-ery, but they inherit a richness that frames the mushroom flavor just as sweetly. Marian dug up some fascinating intel on the gentle touch of oil-poaching compared to regular water-poaching from J. Kenji López-Alt's The Food Lab, “A cup of water at a given temperature (say, 140°F) will have nearly three times more energy in it than a cup of oil at the same temperature.”

As a result of this lower-energy cooking, the mushrooms will be luscious and tender but still hold their own. They won’t be sodden in oil, though there will be enough present that they’ll taste even moister, and you’ll want to balance all that out with a bit of lemon, fresh herbs, sherry vinegar, that sort of thing.

Since we’re used to doling out olive oil by the tablespoonful, using this much at once will probably make you squirm. But you’re not wasting it—at least I hope you’re not: This mushroom- and garlic-scented oil is as much a reason for making the recipe as the mushrooms themselves are. The oil will be a head start on more adventures—frying eggs or more mushrooms, searing greens or chicken thighs, mixing new dressings and sauces. Marian suggests making mushroom aioli (oh hi, steak sandwiches), which will move you through your stash even more quickly.

When I first tried the mushrooms at Txikito, they were sliced thinly and plated carpaccio-style, dressed with more olive oil, garlic, lemon juice, and parsley. I’ve since made plenty of my own, sticking them in grilled cheeses and quesadillas, soft scrambled eggs and herby pastas. I’ve warmed a few in the meaty juices left in the skillet while my steaks were resting, and dropped others as a lush wink on a cleansing plate of crudités. But the easiest and most natural way to serve them is on top of toast, like in The Basque Book and, now, here.

Alex Raij's Mushroom Confit (Setas Confitadas)

View Recipe

Ingredients

4	pounds mushrooms (any kind, even button mushrooms, or wild, such as porcini, hedgehog, chanterelle, milk cap, or St. George’s), trimmed
	Extra-virgin olive oil, to cover
	Kosher salt
6	cloves garlic
4 to 6	thick slices country bread
	Juice of 1 lemon
	Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

4	pounds mushrooms (any kind, even button mushrooms, or wild, such as porcini, hedgehog, chanterelle, milk cap, or St. George’s), trimmed
	Extra-virgin olive oil, to cover
	Kosher salt
6	cloves garlic

4 to 6	thick slices country bread
	Juice of 1 lemon
	Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

Got a genius recipe to share—from a classic cookbook, an online source, or anywhere, really? Please send it my way (and tell me what's so smart about it) at [email protected].

Photos by Linda Xiao