Roasting wood chicken or maitake is very simple and extra crunchy in the air fryer or oven! This maitake recipe is quick to make and is a healthy snack on its own or a perfect dressing for a bowl of Buddha, salad, ramen or even added to your favorite burrito or wrap.
Go to recipe
How to cook mushrooms
Maitake Maitake or forest hen is a frilly mushroom with a rich fleshy taste. The taste of maitake is similar to oyster mushrooms, where some people describe the taste as chicken. It is more juicer than an oyster mushroom, but since it has so many ornaments and is easy to crush, it can get a very crunchy texture.
While this is my favorite
way to easily and quickly prepare the forest hen, my favorite recipe overall is to turn them into Kentucky Fried Hen of the Woods. The way the dough gets into the garnishments is texturally wonderful and the taste of it is very much like chicken.
These mushrooms taste very different from
their standard portabella mushroom and also offer different health benefits, try this variety! By taste and texture it is my favorite mushroom variety of all time!
To roast these hens from forest mushrooms, simply lightly cover with oil, seasoning and roasted in the oven or in your air fryer.
If you like foraging and wild mushrooms, Check out more recipes here!
Where to find
Maitake mushrooms
While the forest hen is a fantastic fungus to feed on hardwood trees, not everyone wants to hike through the forest to find them. Many health food stores have maitake mushrooms, some examples are Whole Foods and Natural Grocers. Most commonly, you’ll find them at an international grocery store or Asian grocery store like H Mark, Uwajimaya, Pacific Ocean Market Place, and District H are all examples. Your local farmers market can also bring chicken mushrooms from the forest! Check if your market has a specific mushroom supplier, it is a common mushroom in the mushroom world and they will often carry it.
In the left half of the plate the forest hen was roasted in theRoast Oven Forest Hen Verso Air-fried
These forest hens are delicious roasted in the oven and fried in the air. Different cooking methods will give you slightly different results, where the roasted oven will be more juicer and the air fried will be extra crispy. Air circulation in the air fryer (or convention oven!) helps dry the mushrooms, giving it an extra crunchy result without excessive oil use. Depending on the size of your air fryer basket, you may want to adjust the cooking time so that it doesn’t dry out completely and still has a wet center. If you increase the cooking time by 2-5 minutes more, the mushrooms will be completely crispy. This makes it an ideal dressing for fried rice, over salads or even sprinkled over soups. Anywhere you want to add a salty crunchy item. Or if you simply want a salty crunchy snack that’s significantly healthier than potato chips! If you love air-fried mushrooms, try it with oyster mushrooms too! When roasting it in an oven in a standard oven, the result will be a juicer. Flipping the mushrooms helps give you a crunchier result, but you’ll still have a meaty, juicy experience under the mushroom trimmings. Mushrooms cooked like this give you the ideal meat replacement in many recipes. These juicy, meaty mushrooms are fantastic on the ramen, inside Buddha bowls, inside sandwiches, tacos, burritos, inside wraps. It works anywhere you would traditionally use meat! With any of the cooking methods you can adjust the seasonings to your preference. The mixture of onion, garlic, pepper and paprika is a very basic mixture that enhances that fleshy flavor. Adding a teaspoon of cumin or chipotle seasoning is fantastic for cooking in the Southwest. A teaspoon of toasted sesame oil and a splash of soy sauce with these mushrooms is amazing with ramen or pho!
Check out Jess Flowers’ latest recipes here:
- Washed flour Seitan
- Oyster Mushrooms Bacon
- Brussels sprouts
- Cultured sunflower cheese
- Matsutake rice
