Grilled Hen of the Woods Steaks with Herb Salsa Verde
Juicy mushroom steaks with piquant herb sauce
Servings: 4
Equipment
- Charcoal grill, Blender
Ingredients
Hen of the woods steaks
- 24 oz roughly fresh hen of the woods (maitake) mushroooms
- Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
- Flavorless cooking oil soft butter or lard, a little to oil the mushrooms before grilling
- Coals and preferably a few wood chips for the grill to approximate wood fire cooking
Garden herb salsa verde
- 2 packed cups herbs: basil lovage, parsley, cilantro, oregano, etc
- 1 tablespoon chopped garlic
- Zest of one lemon
- Juice of 2 lemons or 1/4 cup red wine vinegar
- Kosher salt and pepper to taste
- 3/4 cups blended olive oil high quality (you can use extra virgin but it will coagulate in the fridge and will need to be brought to room temperature)
- ½ cup water
- ½ teaspoon crushed pepper flakes
Instructions
Salsa Verde
- Blanch the herbs in boiling lightly salted water, then immdiately shock in an ice bath. Squeeze the water from the herbs and chop roughly, then combine in the bowl of a highspeed blender and puree with the remaining ingredients except the water.
- Process the mixture to a fine or coarse puree, whatever you like, afterwords, mix in the water to lighten the sauce. Taste the sauce, adjust as needed for acid or salt, then transfer to a labeled, dated container and reserve until needed in the refrigerator.
- The sauce can also be made simply by mincing herbs and adding the rest of the ingredients, but I often prefer to puree in the blender, especially if I’m short of time.
Hen of the woods steaks
- Start the coals for the grill (I like to use a chimney for easy lighting). Meanwhile, clean the hens well, either by inspecting while whole, or breaking apart into large clusters and dipping in water. Large hen of the woods can also be sprayed with hose before they're allowed inside.
- Cut the mushrooms into 6 ounce or so pieces, the mushroom slices should be thick enough to handle with a pair of grill tongs, like a piece of meat. When the coals are hot, oil the mushrooms well on both sides and season with salt and pepper.
- Grill the mushrooms for 5-6 minutes on each side until golden brown, then remove from the heat. It's important that the mushrooms are completely cooked for them to taste right, and as a general best practice habit.
- If you don't know how to tell if they're completely cooked, or if you have really large pieces of mushroom, you might roast them in the oven for a bit at 250-300F while you make a side dish or something to allow them to heat through completely, since they'll taste better that way.
- When the mushrooms are completely cooked, serve on pre-warmed dinner plates, with the salsa verde on the side.