Deep Fried Oyster Mushrooms

I saw this recipe emerged during the Chinese New Year period.  Deep-fried oyster mushrooms, how interesting and said to be delicious.  I seldom do deep-frying so it has taken me a while to revisit this idea of deep-frying oyster mushrooms.  Speaking of which, I wonder why people only do this during Chinese New Year?  Since I have tried this, I got to say it is very delicious when just out of the deep-fryer, it is hot and crispy on the outside and slightly soft inside.  I was trying a new batter here and it turned soft when cold, so you got to eat this hot!  Or use your trusted batter recipe for this.

This is the fresh oyster mushrooms.  You can buy it at the Asian grocery store.  It is said to be able to lower the cholesterol levels because it is naturally contain lovastatin.  Asian eat this mushrooms a lot, we used it in soup and stir-fry.  I prefer the fresh one when comes to oyster mushrooms, the canned oyster mushroom has a smell that I dislike.

Ingredients:

Fresh oyster mushrooms

Batter:

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup rice flour

Salt to taste

White pepper to taste

1 tsp. chicken stock granules

1 Tbsp. Chinese cooking wine

Enough water to make a thick batter

Method:

1.  Quickly rinse the oyster mushrooms under water to clean.  Pad it dry with paper towel. Or you can brush or clean it with towel if you believe mushrooms are not supposed to be wash under water.

2.  Mix the batter in a bowl.  Heat up your wok or deep-fryer with cooking oil, when hot, turn to medium heat.

3.  Take one mushroom, dip in batter and slowly put into the wok to deep-fry, put 4-5 and deep-fry until golden brown.  Dish out and drain on paper towel before serving.  Best to eat it hot and crispy.  Turn soft when cold.

4.  You can serve this baby with Thai's sweet chili sauce or Maggi's sweet chili sauce.

Tea Tree Mushroom

Brief introduction (from the back of this packet):

Tea Mushroom is one of the series products of the People Fortune Company. It is picked in the Daba Mountain which lies in Sichuan Province. The Tea Mushroom is a parasite of the oriental white oaks. In the wild nature, thanks to the special climate there, it is bathed in the sunshine and the moonlight, moistened by rain and dew. It is a kind of mushroom which has a long stem and tender pulp with a crisp and refreshing flavor.

Soaked and cleaned before using. Can be used in deep-fry or stir-fry.



A Chinese friend got us this Tea Mushroom from China (the direct translation would be Tea Tree Mushroom). He said this mushroom is very popular where he is from and it is delicious. Frankly this is the first time I have seen this kind of mushroom, something new for us to try. The stem of this mushroom is very long and I have no clue whether it can be eaten. I wonder why they package the stems if it can't be eaten? But the stem is pretty hard, so I cut off half and use the top half to test it out.

I just stir-fried it with some ginger, chicken and oyster sauce. This Tea Mushroom has a strong woody smell and pretty fragrant, in a mushroom way. But some of the stems were too hard to chew. Guess it's only the mushroom and the immediate stem below it can be eaten, the rest were too tough. Very interesting mushroom and glad to have a chance to try it.

If you have eaten this tea mushroom, can you let me know whether I did it right regarding the stem, okay? TIA!