Winner Winner Chicken Dinner - Mushroom Buffalo Wings Recipe

This past Sunday my spidey senses perked up detecting edible mushrooms growing out in the forest.

This is commonly called chicken of the woods and the latin name is Laetiporus sulphureus. The common name refers to its taste and texture, it basically tastes like chicken.

The night before there was a big rainstorm and that is what brought me out to look for mushrooms. Chicken of the woods likes to bloom in early fall after a rain on dead trees or dying trees. So I went out to a wild wooded area with plenty of dead trees laying around. Can you see the little orange spec in the middle?

There it was bunches of it plenty for a good many meals.

Typically you only harvest the outer edge of these shelf fungi since the portion that attaches to the log is too tough to eat.

Chicken of the woods is bright orange and has no gills. Sometimes people mistake this with jackolantern mushrooms that are poisonous. Jackolanterns have gills so its really easy to differentiate the two.

Here's what the bottom of chicken of the woods looks like. It has yellow pores underneath instead of gills.

Here's my lovely fiance inspecting the chicken. These are pretty big mushrooms.

Now its time for cooking. Basically your goal is to remove the toughest parts of the mushroom.

Here is what is leftover after cleaning.

I usually take the cut pieces and swish them around in salt water to wash off any bark particles. Then I put it on some towels to let them dry off.

Now its time to make the batter. I pour a bunch of spices in a bowl garlic, salt, pepper, cayenne and paprika. Then I mix in one cup of all purpose flour. After this take an egg and one cup of water and mix it into the dry mix.

Next take your clean pieces of mushroom (this recipe works with any mushroom) and roll it around in the batter.

Heat up about an inch of oil then toss the pieces of battered mushroom in there. I let each side cook for about 2-3 minutes.

Let the finished mushrooms dry on some paper towel to drain off any excess oil. Then cook the rest of your meal.

I like to make buffalo wings but these chicken of the woods mushrooms work well with any kind of sauce ie honey mustard or bbq sauce.

Here's the finished product. These chicken of the woods mushroom wings store well. I like to freeze them for when they are out of season. You can also just pan fry them and freeze them for later as well.

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