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Chicken-Fried Mushrooms at the Roadhouse

A basket of crispy fried mushrooms.

Pepper-spiced deep-fried maitake make for some marvelous eating!

By Ari Weinzweig

One of my favorite new foods in the ZCoB over the last few years, these chicken-fried mushrooms are more than worth making a trip across town to try!

To be clear, there’s no actual chicken involved here. The “chicken-fried” is a reference to the batter in which they’re dredged, and the way they’re deep fried! They are, to my taste, absolutely delicious! They start with buttery, meaty, moist maitake mushrooms grown in Michigan. The maitake—also known as hen-of-the-woods—are spiced with that totally terrific farm-to-table Tellicherry pepper from Kerala on the west coast of India. Like the Roadhouse’s more famous fried chicken, the heat from the pepper is prominently present upfront but not overpowering.

Maitake are used widely in Chinese medicine, are loaded with nutrients, and contribute to immune system health. So there are, it seems, possible health benefits to eating them, though for me, it’s all about how tasty they are. In the wild, maitake can grow to be huge, but the folks at Stoney Creek manage the growth so the mushrooms are harvested at a more manageable size. Because they’re cultivating the maitake so effectively, Stoney Creek is making it possible for us to get a year-round supply of these great mushrooms, which opens up the door to doing delicious dishes like this one for many months to come. Mycologist Paul Stamets says,

Maitake mushrooms are known in Japan as “the dancing mushroom.” According to a Japanese legend, a group of Buddhist nuns and woodcutters met on a mountain trail, where they discovered a fruiting of maitake mushrooms emerging from the forest floor. Rejoicing at their discovery of this delicious mushroom, they danced to celebrate.

When you taste these chicken-fried mushrooms—either on a Chicken-Fried Mushroom Sandwich or as an entrée of their own—I forecast that you will find yourself dancing as well! I know they sure get me going. The other evening a guest stopped me to say, almost glowing as she spoke, how darned good they are! I agree!