Rethinking Marinated Mushrooms

Published November 1, 2004.

Do marinated mushrooms have to be slimy, watery, and, well, pretty much inedible?

The Problem

Today most marinated mushrooms have morphed into little more than white button mushrooms soaked in bottled Italian dressing for days on end. The result is slimy, rubbery, brown orbs--hardly the life of the party.

The Goal

Marinated mushrooms should taste good. As a classic Italian antipasto, foraged wild mushrooms are potent with earthy flavor. Blended with the right combination of bright acidity, heady herbs, and the nap of a fine olive oil, each bite should pack a punch.

The Solution

Cremini and white button mushrooms won points for flavor and ubiquity. Crowding the mushrooms in a 12-inch skillet generated, at first, an alarming amount of liquid; cranking up the heat, however, reduced the liquid down to a potent glaze with concentrated mushroom flavor. And if that wasn't good enough, the seven or so minutes that it took to reduce the liquid produced a tender yet al dente mushroom, with no slime in sight.

list of recipes

Marinated Mushrooms

America’s Test Kitchen is a 2,500-square-foot kitchen located just outside of Boston. It is the home of Cook’s Country and Cook’s Illustrated magazines and is the workday destination for more than three dozen test cooks, editors, and cookware specialists. Our mission is to test recipes until we understand how and why they work and arrive at the best version. We also test kitchen equipment and supermarket ingredients in search of brands that offer the best value and performance. You can watch us work by tuning in to America’s Test Kitchen (www.americastestkitchen.com) on public television.