My new job is happily devouring my life, so I only managed to engineer *one* new recipe with puffballs this year, but it’s a great one: puffball hummus.
Last year I shared a recipe for a caramelized puree of puffballs that allows you to concentrate their flavor and compress them into a small size that’s easy to freeze and store for the off season, since, unless you have walk-in coolers like a restaurant, keeping puffballs around can be really space-challenging. I was surprised at how much people liked it, since a lot of hunters pass puffballs up (It was featured in the NAMA newsletter, and was a requested recipe for my Chef’s mushroom discussion for the Minnesota Mycological Society this past October, as well as garnering a lot of questions and discussions on here and social media.)
Dicing puffballs, you can easily just tear them apart too.
The puree is a great concentrate, but it’s just that, a concentrate. It’s got a powerful flavor that needs to be tamed by mixing or diluting it with other things, it also takes a long time to make and requires plenty of attention. While most of the cooks and especially chefs were really interested in the process, which I borrowed from the gradual caramelization of Spanish dulce de leche and Indian milk curd used to thicken curries, I could tell some people thought it was too complicated for them to try.
Puffball chunks, after toasting in the oven
The basic method of making a toasted puree of the mushrooms is really useful though, and I thought it would be good to show a basic recipe using the puffballs that doesn’t take so much time to have some variation.
So, our hummus here follows the same formula as the caramelized puree, just on a smaller scale and without the lengthy baking at a low temperature to remove water weight from the mushrooms.
I prefer a vita-mix blender, but a food processor will give good results too.
Puffballs are first skinned, then diced and baked until their flesh toasts and gets nutty brown. Afterwords, then mushrooms are pureed in a food processor or high-speed blender, substituting the mushroom for chickpeas, yielding a creamy, nutty dip with plenty of possibilities.
Here’s a couple ways I would try using it
- Spread on a plate like thick sauce, then top with some cooked vegetables and meat like chicken or fish it would make a great summery garnish, drizzled with a little lemon juice and olive oil to finish.
- It would love to be layered with eggplant and tomatoes and baked as a casserole like moussaka
- Working some eggs into the mixture, or just a high amount of yolks and baking it could make a great mushroom cake as the basis for a good ovo-vegetarian entree
- My favorite way to enjoy hummus is as part of a mezze plate, get some of your favorite olives, raw scallions, marinated vegetables like zucchini, peppers, eggplant or artichokes, heirloom tomatoes, olives of your choice, and of course, some nice feta you’ve purchased in it’s juice, then drizzle the whole thing with olive oil.
Puffball Mushroom Hummus
Equipment
- Highspeed blender or food processor, Baking sheet
Ingredients
- 1 lb fresh white puffball mushroom, diced 1 inch
- 1 tablespoon tahini
- 1/4 cup olive oil +2 tablespoons flavorless oil like grapeseed
- Juice of 1/2 a lemon plus more to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon garlic or more to taste
- 1/4 cup water
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt plus more to taste
- Fresh ground cumin to taste
Instructions
- Spread the puffballs out on a non-stick baking sheet and cook at 275 for 30-45 minutes, or until toasty brown and completely cooked.
- Squeeze the puffballs chunks a bit to compress them (this should end up being around 2 packed cups), then place in the bowl of a food processor (or a highspeed blender like I use in the pictures, which will give the smoothest result).
- Add the garlic, lemon, cumin, salt, tahini, and water and puree the mixture until smooth, then start drizzling in the oils slowly like you're making mayonnaise, which is the key to making the velvety-smooth hummus pictured. If the mixture seems difficult to purée, add a splash of lemon or water until the blades of the processor move. Use your instinct to make a smooth purée.
- When all the oil has been added, double check the seasoning for salt and lemon, adjust as needed, then transfer to a labeled, dated container and refrigerate until needed.
I’m loving this idea! How about dehydrating diced or sliced puffballs instead of slow roasting? At 115 F or so in my homemade dehydrator, the mushrooms would take longer to dry than to roast. They wouldn’t take on any toasty flavor however, as they would in an oven. Do you see any advantage to drying instead of roasting?
You generally should cook all wild mushrooms, very few are safe to eat raw.
http://www.mykoweb.com/articles/EatingRawMushrooms.html
I know it seems like I say this to every single one of your posts, but I am super excited to try this, how do you think these things up!?!?
As always, I’ve shared it to my foraging Pinterest. Do you Pinterest? Your photos are so beautiful and your concepts are so compelling, I imagine you would get a lot of traffic.
Plus I would love to see your boards for inspiration
I did make and enjoyed the caramalized puffball, and am sure I will like this one just as well.
Two summers ago I stumled upon my first ever 2 puffballs (their smaller relatives). I grated and deep-fried them and served them with pasta and stir-fryed tomatoes. Great.
This recipe is perfect! I will no longer smash or kick Giant Puffballs. The best mushroom dip I have ever tried, by far.
So glad you liked it, they’re really good. I was very happy with how this turned out.
This is by far my favorite thing to do with a puffball now. To take it a step further, this is simply not even fair to the legumes as it is so amazingly smooth and a brilliant depth of flavour while not being overwhelming to non mushroom enthusiasts. This recipe works perfectly as described and is so much better than I could have ever hoped. Thanks so much.
Glad you liked it. An old favorite of mine.
I’ve been looking forward to making this recipe for a year. Finally got a perfect puffball. The texture was beautiful, but ohmy, the smell, and taste were just overwhelming. Like the stinkyest of stinky cheese
just made this, reminds me of pate a bit. We at it on wasa crackers with raw veggies & feta on top. its great in small doses with more bland ingredients.
Yes, small doses or used on something like a sandwich. It’s rich stuff.