How to Make the BEST Lion's Mane Mushroom Steaks | BRAIN BOOSTING BBQ (2023) | The Wicked Kitchen

All right, guys. Welcome to the Wicked Kitchen. Today, super excited. I'm gonna show you how to make these amazing lion's mane steaks. You guys, this will blow away anybody, especially meat eaters. This is amazing. Lion's mane steaks, stay tuned. Finally, I'm so excited to show how to cook these lion's mane mushrooms. Smithy Mushrooms is growing them here in the UK, and I used to get them when I was in Portland, Oregon a lot. I cooked with them a lot there, so I've been really excited for this past year is practicing and playing with the lion's mane mushrooms, and I'm gonna show you what I think is the best recipe and the best way to actually cook these. It's gonna be awesome, you guys, so here we go. All right, so I'm gonna turn on the oven. I'm gonna preheat the oven. It's a convection oven to 200 degrees Celsius, 400 degrees Fahrenheit if you're in the US, on fan. If you don't have fan access, I would crank it up to like 425 Fahrenheit or a little bit higher, but I do like the roasting, the convection fan position. So again, I'm using cast iron pans, guys. For me, it gives the best heat, evenly distributed, easy to clean. I can work on top of the stove. If you notice how I've been cooking, everything's on the stove in the oven, and these are very good to transfer between the both. So I'm gonna crank the heat on and get that going. So lion's mane, you don't have to clean too much. Most of them, all you're gonna have to do is just trim the bottom off, just a slight little bit, and that'll help create an even place where it's gonna sit on the pan. What I did was take regular rapeseed oil, canola oil, and just a little bit of olive oil, so it's somewhat of a blend I like to make, so, because we're gonna be infusing flavor. There's hardly any fat in mushrooms, if any at all, and I wanna inject that because I want that mouthfeel. We're going for a very meaty texture because, you know, we don't need to be cooking animals anymore, and these are one of the best ways to do that and have that meaty experience. So we got that pan going. Just gonna add a little bit of oil here, coat the bottom. I'm also gonna use, specifically just for you guys, because I get so much grief for making so much spicy food because, hey, a lot of people love spicy food. If you love spicy food or you don't, let me know in the comments below. I'm gonna use just a regular straight-up barbecue seasoning instead of the Wicked one because the Wicked one is definitely hot. So I'm gonna add this to a little bowl here because I'm gonna blend it. I'm gonna add, also, I'm using the sage and onion, the Wicked Kitchen sage and onion one. And if you don't have access to the Wicked Kitchen brand, just, a lot of people make, like, sage and onion granulate. If you just take rubbed sage, mix it with onion granulators, a little bit of garlic granulated, salt and pepper, and that's it. So I'm just gonna add that here. So it'll give it a nice barbecue-y, meaty flavor. Let's get going. Add the mushrooms right to the pan like this. And I'll let it sit here for a second and just get used to being on the pan. I know it's gonna sound weird, but if you're one with the mushroom, like, you really feel how it's gonna press and you can gauge how much moisture is in it. Like, these aren't too waterlogged. Sometimes they're really, really heavy and they're really dense. These ones are, like, I would say mid. Sometimes they're really, really light. And these ones are gonna create, I can tell already, a nice, thick cutlet or steak, something that will really replicate a good pork cutlet, super juicy inside. So as that's going, I'm just gonna rest the pan on here for a minute before I add any pressing. Again, it's just gonna sit there and get the mushroom used to that heat and that sear, because as the mushroom goes down, it's gonna start expelling liquid. And so I want to caramelize the edge and really sear it well. So as the liquid comes out, it's gonna counteract that whole searing action. So I want to do it gently and have a little bit of patience. Guys, I'm not an expert on all the benefits of lion's mane, but what I do know is it's brain-boosting. So a lot of supplements have lion's mane in them. It's really good for dementia, for Alzheimer's. It's one of the only things that I'm aware of that really does feed the brain, like vitamins and minerals and nutrients that we need. So it just helps with being smarter. That's why I try to eat a lot of them, because I need a lot of help. Now I'm gonna add a little bit more pressure now and start the pressing. And as that presses, like I said, it's gonna start releasing moisture, and that's where that steam is gonna come from and smoke. Always wipe that. I'm gonna add a little bit more oil, just a little bit. Yeah, see, that's creating a really nice golden brown color. You can see that. I'm gonna add the pan again and just go for that press again. Now I'm gonna really press it down. Just gonna have a look. And I can see the oil's already starting to get absorbed into it. And see, it's not too bad right there. I'm gonna add a little bit more oil, because that does help with the searing, and you can hear that. Nice. Guys, one of the other things I really love about cooking mushrooms this way is when I gave up meat a while ago, I didn't wanna give up the whole coolness of cooking. It's really important to just have, like I have certain habits. I used to like cooking meat. I used to do it. But since I've gone vegan and I don't eat animals anymore, I didn't wanna give up the taste experience or the cooking experience of it all. So this technique is really, I mean, it's really important to me because it makes me still feel like I'm doing what I love and cooking is what I love. And this, cooking mushrooms, satisfies all of that. I have the seasoning here. Just gonna season it really well on each side on the top. I'm gonna add a little bit of black pepper and a little bit of salt. And then I'm gonna add a little bit more oil now so that doesn't stick. Always between the mushrooms here. And I'm just gonna flip these over. They're looking delicious. They smell great. And I'm gonna press again. Now I can really feel the liquid coming out and I can see it and you can hear it. The sizzling will start to slow down. So now that moisture's really starting to come out. It's at that point. Okay, so before I flip them again, I wanna season them on the top. Yeah, now it's starting to get a nice brown searing on there. It looks great. Seasoning's really sticking. I am gonna press it again because they're really thick right now. If I wanna get it thinner, it's all up to you how thick or thin you wanna do it. I want more cutlet style, not big thick steaks this time. So we'll press them again. See where we get to. Get some of that liquid out. It's great. You can see that liquid. Sometimes really quite a bit of liquid comes out. Now I'm gonna season it one more time on this side. I'm gonna touch just a little bit more oil here. Flip it. And one more press. Now I'm gonna pop this in the oven for about 10 minutes and then we'll deglaze the pan and finish it up. All right, so it's been about 10 minutes. Let's pull out those shrooms. Yes, fantastic. Look at that. So I want to slice one up for us and I wanna deglaze the pan, make a quick sauce out of that. A little bit of butter. Just gets all that nice bits up. And then I have some barbecue sauce. I'm just gonna heat that up. It's a little buttery barbecue sauce. A little bit of sauce on the plate here. Okay, so just quick sharpen the edge. Nice thin slices. It's really hot. Hot. It's really hot. I'm gonna have somebody come over and try it, one of these camera guys. We'll call him Tarek, yeah? Come on over, bud. Check this out. So just a taste test, because I want to make sure it's not just me. Put a little bit of barbecue sauce there for you. You gotta grab a fork, yeah? All right, I'll set it down. Please do. Let me know if it needs salt and pepper. It's just like juicy, super meaty. All right, so there you have it, guys. Super easy barbecue-style lion's mane mushroom steak. This is one of the best mushroom recipes you can possibly cook. All right, one thing. You guys know Paul Stamets. I really want to cook for him. I think he would be blown away by this technique right here and this dish, and it's on my bucket list. Him and the Dalai Lama, I really want to cook for them. It's definitely on my bucket list.