Gourmet wood-lovers
Lion's mane
Hericium erinaceus
Never eat a wild-foraged mushroom you identified from a website, this one included. Wild mushroom misidentification can be fatal, and no page can rule a specimen IN. This reference is about cultivated and shop-bought mushrooms only: species you buy, or grow from bought spawn, where there is nothing to identify. To identify anything wild, consult a qualified local expert holding the actual specimen, never a description on a screen.
Also sold as
- Bearded tooth
- Yamabushitake
- Hedgehog mushroom (as a market name)
- Pom pom
In the kitchen
Flavour
Sweet and mild, widely compared to crab or lobster.
Texture
Spongy raw; seared properly it firms into tender white slabs. Undercooked, it stays spongy, which is the usual reason people miss the appeal.
In the kitchen
Tear into thick slabs, press out the water between paper, then sear hard in butter until deep gold on both sides. Treated as a seafood substitute in crab-style cakes.
How it is cultivated
Substrate
Sterilised supplemented hardwood sawdust, or hardwood logs. Bran-supplemented beech or oak sawdust is the standard block substrate.
Fruiting temperature
16-24°C (60-75°F)
Humidity
90-95% relative humidity
How it is grown
Supplemented hardwood sawdust block, or a ready-to-fruit kit
Time to first harvest
About 4 to 8 weeks from a colonised block
How much, how long
Two or three flushes
Difficulty at home
Beginner. One of the easiest gourmets from a ready-to-fruit block or kit; it fruits reliably at room temperature.
What is worth knowing about it
A gourmet mushroom that is also easy to grow at home, so it is a common first block after oysters. Its close Hericium relatives are all edible, but as with everything on this site you eat the one you grew, not one you found.
Elsewhere on the site
Sources
- Wikipedia, Hericium erinaceus
- North Spore and GroCycle grower guides (fruiting range)
Others in this group