Porcini Powder – Opium for the cooks

I first came across a recommendation for this on Hungry Mouse’s website when I was doing some more research into umami flavourings and thought that it would be good to get my hands on some of that. Then, last week  I was in Sheung Wan nosing about Jervois Street on my way to Monsieur Chatte’s shop to see what cheese he had, when I came across J’s Garden.

J’s Garden sells a number of organic products, but most importantly/interestingly it sells all sorts of top end, wild mushrooms, both fresh and dried. You can actually buy fresh morels in there. I couldn’t believe it!

Apparently all the mushrooms come from Yunnan’s mountains and are certified wild. Loon Kee Hoo, the company behind J’s Garden seem like an interesting enterprise too.

Anyway, there on a shelf was a packet of porcini powder, so I snapped it up: 150g for HK$118 which seems massively reasonable. I also picked up some termite mushrooms, that are actually caused by termites see p15 of this pdf. – barmy. The lady assured me they were similar to Porcini, although I haven’t tested them out yet.

For my first foray into using this stuff I rubbed it into the skin of a chicken I was going to roast, and also used it sprinkled over my roast potatoes.

Both were good, but the potatoes were a revelation. I was using duck fat anyway to lard them, which is scrumptious enough, but the addition of the porcini powder tipped them over the edge. I suppose I used a heaped teaspoon mixed into the seasoned duck fat and then used to baste the tatoes (16 in a big roasting dish), which maybe was a bit much – the umami taste was so potent it actually hit me on a mental level. It felt like I was tweaked on drugs. So I think I’m going to have to use it a bit more sparingly, otherwise eating may become just too intense.

I can certainly see why Hungry Mouse calls this her secret weapon. I think it’s going to be mine too.

Do it, buy some and see for yourself.  Use in stocks, soups, rubbed into steaks before griddling etc, really any time you feel that your dish is lacking that oomph and are not sure what to add. That oomph needed is umami and Porcini powder delivers that satisfaction in spades (or half-teaspoons at least).

J’s Garden can be found at GF, 57 Jervois Street, Sheung Wan, Hong Kong. Tel: 2851-3310