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King Trumpet Mushroom Steaks

by Matt Kennard

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Scored, seared hard, basted in butter, finished with balsamic or a red wine reduction. The only mushroom with enough body to be the main thing on the plate.

Serves
4
Total
30 min
SearedVegetables
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King trumpets are the one mushroom dense enough to treat like meat. Thick stem, almost no gills, and a texture that holds up to a hard sear instead of collapsing into it.

Everything from the mushroom entry applies here too: get the water out first, then the fat, then flip rather than stir. The difference is the scoring and the basting, which turn a side dish into the thing people eat.

The red wine reduction

Shallot and garlic softened in butter, a cup of wine reduced by half, half a cup of stock reduced again, strained, then mounted with cold butter off the heat. The full method is in Red Wine Reduction.

Worth the extra pan when the mushrooms are the main thing. Balsamic is the version for a weeknight.

If it's not right

  • Rubbery: undercooked. They want to be properly soft inside, not al dente.
  • Gray: oil before the water came out.
  • Pale: pan not hot enough, or you didn't press.
  • Flat: salt, and then the acid. A mushroom without either tastes like it's missing something because it is.

Ingredients

4

Make these first

Method

  1. **Cut lengthwise** into slabs about 2 cm thick, or crosswise into rounds if the stems are very fat. You want flat faces for contact.

  2. **Score a crosshatch** into both faces, about 2 mm deep. More surface, more browning, and the butter gets inside.

  3. **Dry pan, high heat.** Mushrooms in, no oil, and let the water come out and cook off. The pan goes from bubbling to sizzling when it's done.

  4. **Oil in, and press.** A spatula held down for the first thirty seconds makes the difference between contact and a gap. Three or four minutes a side, until deeply brown.

  5. **Season.** Salt now, not before.

  6. **Heat down. Butter, garlic, thyme.** Tilt the pan and baste for a minute or two, exactly as you would a steak.

  7. **Finish.** Balsamic straight into the pan off the heat, hissing and reducing against the fond. Or make the red wine reduction separately and spoon it over.

Goes with

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