Roland Foods Dried Mixed Wild Mushrooms Specialty Imported Food ,16 Ounce (Pack of 1)

> Larger container than I expected --- about a gallon, maybe a gallon and a half.> Seems to be very good quality, large pieces -- no mold.> Mine have a bit of sand (not much, but even a little can be offputting in a finished dish). So, soak them in a white bowl (so you can see the sand) thoroughly to hydrate, and change the water several times. Repeat until there is no more visible sand in the bowl --- may take 4 or 6 washings. Even after 5 washings, I still found a smear of fine sand, as well as small twigs and other plant material. The mushrooms may not release all the sand until they are fully hydrated (see below).> All the mushrooms that I've encountered so far appear to be chanterelles (or possibly oyster mushrooms), ear fungi, and boletes, albeit that may change with the season that the mushrooms were picked. None were strongly flavorful.> The mushrooms can be hydrated in 20 to 30 minutes in warm (not hot) water. Even hydrated, they are much more chewy than fresh or canned mushrooms. It's best to hydrate them separately in pure water --- don't count on them hydrating adequately from the water in a soup, or in a sauce (perhaps with the idea of thickening the sauce, absorbing favor from the sauce, or retaining more mushroom flavor --- won't happen -- or at least the results will not be satisfactory --- and your dish will probably be sandy). For at least most uses, the mushrooms are best as hydrated as possible, which requires hydrating in plain water. After hydration, you can marinate the mushrooms if you wish.> Grinding the dry mushrooms up to use as a powder doesn't sound like a good idea to me, because there will be no way to remove the sand.> If you want to use the dark brown hydration water, as some other reviewers suggest, then soak for at least 30 minutes and then carefully decant the water, leaving the sand behind.> Would you like a nice creamy, but healthy, cream of mushroom sauce? After hydrating and rinsing add the mushrooms to real Alfredo sauce (such as Rao's). Cheese-based Alfredo Sauce is relatively low carbs (diabetic friendly), not mostly flour, coloring --- starch, water and flavoring are the main ingredient of cheaper brands of pseudo-Alfredo sauce or "cream of mushroom soup" (which is really just flour gravy). Mushroomy real Alfredo sauce is great with cubed beef or pieces of chicken. I usually sautee down a large chopped onion and add it to the sauce.> How do you find real Alfredo sauce? First look for the most expensive brands, then read the labels. Cream and cheese should be the main ingredients. Alfredo sauce should contain no flour or "starch". (Caveat, if "starch" is listed near the bottom of a long list of ingredients, that's okay. It means that there is not enough starch to be concerned about)

I love this mix. I have used it several times, and last night I made two different recipes with them. The first was a mushroom sauce to go over two wonderful steaks, and the other was a blend in for some beautiful green beans. Excellent. They are flavorful, large pieces that you can cut as needed. As someone else mentioned, there is a little bit of sand, so you need to soak them well and then rinse and drain them. Repeat a couple of times, and they are delicious!

I buy these once or twice a year and normally love them. So much! I don't have the patience to reconstitute them whole, and don't like the texture of some of them. That would be the same for any brand or type of dried mushroom so I don't consider it to be anything negative about this particular product.I don't use them while, but I use them several different ways. I chop them into small pieces with an immersion blender and hot water. I blend them into tiny tiny pieces with hot water and and immersion blender or in my nutribullet. Or I blend them dry in the nutribullet. They reconstitute much more quickly in smaller pieces. If ill be cooking them in a sauce or soup or something liquid for 10 minutes or so, I don't bother reconstitution in advance. The water from reconstitution them makes a delicious replacement for other watery ingredients like chicken broth. Blending into tiny pieces with a small amount of hot water can produce a nice mushroom paste that can be used as is or added to sauces. When the container is almost empty and its time to order more, I pour the remainder into the nutribullet and turn it into a dry umami powder that I put in a spice jar and sprinkle on anything that needs an umami boost. I use the blends of water and small pieces or the paste of tiny pieces to make sauces along with fresh sauted mushrooms. My family and I really love having these on hand all the time, ready to fancy up everyday recipes.With this last purchase (probably my 6th or so), I came across a problem. With the first use, I made a mushroom sauce with fresh mushrooms and had an issue with grit in the final product. Since its possible that I left some dirt on the fresh mushrooms, I made the next sauce with nothing but this product and a few liquids. Yup, the problem lies here. Its like there's a small amount of sand clinging to some of the mushrooms. Leaving them in small pieces means I occasionally come across a bite with alot of grit, like I've bitten down on a tiny clod of sand and dirt, and other bites are just occasionally a little gritty, sort of like eating a meal at the beach where sand finds its way into everything. If I totally blend the product, I find just about every bite to have a small amount of sandy grit. I know it seems like I just kept shoveling sand into my mouth, but I really just took a few bites to try to isolate the problem. Maybe if I used them whole and threw out the reconstitution water, I could effectively rinse away all the grit and then chop or blend them into smaller pieces, but I feel like I'd be looking alot of the flavor and also alot of the small pieces of mushroom that break into bits. Straining out the grit means straning out alot of the mushrooms and flavor. I guess I'll have to do that this time or else the product is worthless. I'll still try again and purchase the same product next time. Hopefully it was a rare occurrence of a particularly sandy batch of mushrooms sneaking past quality checks.

dried nushrooms rehydrate beautifully for use in salads, soups, sauces, casseroles or just as is. hardcore fans even like chowing down on as-is dried. all mushrooms can boost human immune systems, too.this eclectic mix can be pieced together from grocers by buying small individual packets, but these won't also always be organic shrooms.it's a market perversity that organic is almost always more expensive than adulterated product. we subsidize the wrong things.the sturdy, sealed plastic jar defies damage from sometimes negligent AMZ warehouse packing for shipment. a pretty safe buy. very tasty wild shrooms.

After hydration, they are leathery. The hydration step is a pain when planning what to cook. They taste OK. When you don't have fresh, they are better than nothing. The sulfer additive is not good. I think I will try grinding them into a powder. Then I can skip the hydration step and texture problem.

Brings back memories of Mom's gourmet mushroom soup for the holidays. Use them in soups and stews, incorporating the hot water that's used to reconstitute them as delicious broth in my dish. Some trimming of woody ends needed after being reconstituted but mostly edible and enjoyable.