Oyster mushroom tacos.

Mushroom tacos get a bad reputation because most versions are grey and wet. That is a technique problem, not an ingredient problem — mushrooms are 90% water, and if you crowd the pan or add oil too early you are boiling them.

Get the pan properly hot, spread the mushrooms in one layer, and leave them alone. You want mahogany edges, not steam.

What you need

Mushrooms

• 1 lb oyster mushrooms, torn into strips
• 2 tbsp neutral oil
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 chipotle in adobo, minced, plus 1 tsp of the sauce
• 2 garlic cloves, sliced
• Salt

Slaw

• 2 cups shredded red cabbage
• ½ red onion, thinly sliced
• Juice of 1 lime
• ½ tsp salt
• Handful of coriander, chopped

To serve

• 8 corn tortillas
• Crumbled queso fresco or feta
• Lime wedges, hot sauce

Method

1. Make the slaw first so it has time to soften: toss cabbage, onion, lime juice and salt in a bowl and leave it while you cook. Add the coriander at the end.
2. Tear the mushrooms into strips roughly the size of your little finger. Trim the woody base off the cluster.
3. Get a large heavy pan very hot and dry. Add the mushrooms in a single layer with no oil at all and leave them for 3 minutes without touching them. They will squeak, release water, then go quiet — that silence is the water leaving.
4. Now add the oil, along with the cumin and paprika, and toss once. Cook another 3–4 minutes until the edges are properly browned.
5. Add garlic, chipotle and adobo sauce, and cook 1 minute more until fragrant. Salt to taste — at the end, never at the start.
6. Char the tortillas directly over a gas flame or in a dry pan for 20 seconds a side.
7. Build: mushrooms, slaw, cheese, a squeeze of lime.

Why the dry pan comes first

Oil added to a cold pan traps the mushroom’s water against its own surface, and the mushroom simmers. A hot dry pan drives that water off as steam so the surface can brown. It feels wrong the first time; do it once and you will never go back. The same rule runs through every recipe on this site and the species guide.

If you can get pink oyster, use it here. It shreds into strands rather than staying in slabs, which is as close to carnitas as a mushroom gets — see the carnitas version.

Making it a bigger meal

Black beans in the pan after the mushrooms, warmed in the residual spice. Or double the mushrooms and serve over rice with the slaw on the side as a bowl instead.

Common questions