Shitake getting hectic

Brisbane had a 'regional tastes' festival the other week and we picked up a shitake mushroom log from a local produce stand. At first this looks like a dirty log wrapped in clingfilm (which drew some entertaining looks at the festival), but there was a break in the clingfilm and when we got it home the mushrooms soon took advantage of that. Insert your favourite 'not mush room in there' pun here.

The mushroom log is basically a hard-packed compressed woodchip cylinder that has been innoculated with mushroom spores. You need to keep it somewhere moist but allow a bit of air to circulate, and after a bit of looking around we decided that our empty fishtank would be perfect.

The mushrooms emerge in three or four 'flushes' over 6 weeks or so. We weren't sure when to harvest the mushrooms so we left lovely white mushrooms on the log too long and we had to throw hald of them away because they turned a bit brown and mouldy. Next time we'll pick them when they look ready instead of waiting for the whole 'crop' to be ready. But the ones we tasted were lovely - fresh, clean and with a hint of an aged cheese to the flavour.

Thinking about it, that might work in a beer...