Mushroom Oils & Truffle Oils

[Alana McGee]

I just book our first mushroom foray up north, so when we finally get some rain & mushrooms around here, I want to make some oils with fresh mushrooms if possible. I know there are concerns about botulism when using wet ingredients and many herbed oil recipes recommend using dried herbs to due the possibility of botulism.Here’s a standard culinary recipe I found using dry mushrooms.

Mushroom Oil

1 ounce dried (usally around 1/2 lb fresh)
2 cups oil

Combine mushrooms and oil heavy medium saucepan. Cook over low heat until thermometer inserted into oil registers 180?F, about 8 minutes. Remove from heat. Cover; cool to room temperature, about 2 hours. Divide mixture among bottles. Seal lids. Refrigerate up to 3 weeks.

Truffle Oil

from http://www.trufamania.com/truffles-gastronomy.htm

In extra virgin olive oil, sunflower oil, walnut oil, peanut oil, at a rate of 20 g / liter. There are two ways to make truffle oil: one of them is to use chopped or grated truffle. The oil we must always keep in the fridge if you do not want the oil truffle spoil. The other way would be to introduce a whole truffle into oil and allow the oil to pick up the aroma of the truffle. You have to filter the oil after a few days and you can use the truffle for other recipes. IMPORTANT NOTE: We do not consider oil as a method of preservation of truffles because truffles will spoil and there is a risk of botulism developing in the oxygen-free oil. You can flavour oil with truffles, but the oil containing truffles must be refrigerated and used within one month. Heating this oil in a double boiler, although it reduces risk, it does not eliminate it completely because botulism-producing bacteria (Clostridium botulinum) produce spores that can survive boiling water temperatures for several hours.

Are either of these methods good for producing a good scenting oil?

Do you have other recipes/recommendations?

thanks

[Alana McGee]

To make stable, safe oils is difficult. In the past I have used either a vacuum chamber system or a distillate process and it’s a wee bit complicated and you need special Equipment. That’s what the training oil is made from, but I don’t like to use olive oil either as it is too heavy and has VOCs of it’s own. Use grape seed if you want the truffle/mushroom to come through. Light olive oils can work ok for culinary use.

For personal use in oils (shorter shelf life), the heating method or similar is what a lot of Italians do.

I don’t have any recipes for non complicated creation sorry!

My suggestion is infuse butter and freeze it! Has worked better for us in the past in a culinary sense.

[Alana McGee]

Thanks Alana,

I’ll just stick to using fresh when available and freeze mushrooms for future use in addition to dried.
I had looked at distillation, but as you said the equipment is expensive.

[Alana McGee]

If you’re looking for anything in particular (species wise) I can ask around. I know some guys were working on Matsutake oil. I saved my little dried pieces from some of a couple I found but I would need massive amounts more volume before I could do much with it. Let me know and I can ask friends and colleagues I know who have labs they grow mushrooms in if they can contacts etc. You never know. I’ll ask him next time I see him as well about other ways to make some of the things you’re talking about.

[Alana McGee]

Thanks. I’ll keep researching and check with a few people if they have a distiller. My problem right now is almost all of my frozen mushrooms were cooked as many do not freeze well. I do have a few fresh frozen morels. Thankfully, now, I didn’t have time to cook them last April before we left on a trip and I just threw them in the freezer! :-))

From what I have read, oils made with dried mushrooms should be safe. So I can always try a sample batch and see how that works. I have also read that canola oil is fairly low on VOC’s, is that correct?

I can imagine it takes a lot to make oils. It’s like dyeing with mushrooms. Usually it’s an ounce of dried mushroom to and ounce of wool.

[Alana McGee]

It doesn’t take much for oils like that no- the distillation can take quite a lot tho- another reason it is expensive.

I actually haven’t looked it up but Canola sounds about right for lower VOC content. I am sure there is a published study on it somewhere in some food science journal.

Grapeseed oil is also milder than olive oil.

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