Gourmet wood-lovers
Pioppino, black poplar
Cyclocybe aegerita
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
- Black poplar mushroom
- Velvet pioppini
- Agrocybe aegerita (older name)
In the kitchen
Flavour
Nutty and peppery with a wine-like depth, stronger than most cultivated caps.
Texture
Firm brown caps on crunchy slender stems that keep their bite when cooked.
In the kitchen
Holds its shape and texture well, so it suits longer cooking: sautes, ragus and braises where a softer mushroom would collapse. Both cap and stem are eaten.
How it is cultivated
Substrate
Sterilised supplemented hardwood sawdust, or hardwood logs; in the wild it grows on poplar and other broadleaf wood.
Fruiting temperature
15-25°C (59-77°F)
Humidity
85-95% relative humidity
How it is grown
Supplemented hardwood sawdust block
Time to first harvest
Roughly 1 to 2 months from a colonised block
How much, how long
Repeated clustered flushes
Difficulty at home
Intermediate. Grows readily on a supplemented block and tolerates a wide, ordinary room-temperature range.
What is worth knowing about it
A Mediterranean gourmet mushroom, long cultivated in Italy, that grows well at ordinary indoor temperatures. Its older name Agrocybe aegerita is still common on spawn labels.
Sources
- Wikipedia, Cyclocybe aegerita
- Stamets, Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms
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