Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms - Special Irish Foods & The People Who Make Them

Very much with the zeitgeist for wild and foraged foods, Lucy Deegan and Mark Cribbin’s enterprising north Cork company grows a unique range of speciality mushrooms - comprising everything from shiitake and oyster mushrooms to velvet pipionni and nameko.

Spores are inoculated into local wood including oak, birch and elder; and, harnessing the light and pure air of their location, the mushrooms thrive.

But not only do they grow these wonderful fungi, but they also supply a wide range of wild and foraged foods including plants like wild garlic, sorrel and wild strawberries in season as well as naturally occurring local fungi.

Not content with supplying the raw produce, they also offer dried mushrooms and an interesting range of mushroom products including marinated oyster & shiitake mushrooms, mushroom soups, wild mushroom and oyster mushroom paté.

The marinated mushrooms and the oyster mushroom paté offer a superb vegetarian alternative for starters and light meals, and there are also special flavourings such as cep oils and mushroom seasoning powders - wild cep and shitake - that provide umami flavours that can give a real lift to food without the need for meat-based stocks.

An extraordinary product to seek out is shiitake bacon, which just happens to taste like bacon, but without the pig, and has many uses as a replacement for bacon. Amazing.

You’ll spot Ballyhoura Mushrooms at farmers’ markets in the Cork area, and they also take stands at food shows. [Farmers’ Markets: Mahon Point (Thu, 10-2) Cornmarket Street (Sat 9-2) Midleton (Sat 9-1)]

Even before you taste them, you will instantly see why they have attracted so much praise, including awards from both the Irish Food Writers’ Guild and Euro-Toques (neither of which accept applications from producers, both are totally independent).

RECIPE: Dry-aged beef, Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms, Coolea cheese, parsley purée, wild garlic

Recipe created for the Irish Food Writers’ Guild Awards 2014 by chefs Derry Clarke and Michael Hunter of l’Ecrivain restaurant, Baggot Street, Dublin 2.

This simple dish showcases Ballyhoura Mushrooms and another award winner, Coolea cheese, which is produced in the same area, alongside some quality dry-aged Irish beef.

Serves 4

for the beef
2 fillet dry-aged Irish steaks
freshly ground Irish Atlantic Sea Salt and black pepper

for the mushrooms
300g assorted Ballyhoura Mountain Mushrooms, cleaned
freshly ground Irish Atlantic Sea Salt and black pepper
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

for the parsley purée
200g fresh flat-leaf parsley
30ml olive oil

for the wild garlic
handful wild garlic, washed
1 tbsp butter
freshly ground Irish Atlantic Sea Salt and black pepper

to serve
4 generous slices Coolea cheese

Season the steaks and sear on a very hot pan, making sure to brown all sides. Cook medium-rare and leave to rest for at least five minutes.

Heat a clean pan, add a little rapeseed oil and toss the mushrooms for two minutes. Season and add a tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce. Transfer to a kitchen towel.

Remove the parsley leaves from the stalks. Place the stalks in a pot of boiling water for two minutes. Add the leaves and cook for a further two minutes. Remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl of iced water. Drain and blend in a food processor with the olive oil until smooth. Finally pass through a sieve.

Toss the wild garlic in a hot pan with the butter, season and sauté for 10-15 seconds.

To serve, cut the steaks in half. Place a slice of Coolea cheese on each piece of beef. Dot the plate with parsley purée and scatter the sautéed wild garlic over the beef.