Chicken Of The Woods: Identifying and Cooking

Chicken of the woods is easily my favorite wild mushroom. It's one of the easiest to identify, thus making it a great mushroom for beginners, and it is absolutely delicious.

The name is self explanatory -- it really does taste like chicken. The first time I prepared it, I was extremely doubtful but the taste and texture were definitely close enough to chicken that if I hadn't known it was mushroom I would have had no idea.

Now obviously if you've never gathered wild mushrooms before, you want to be especially careful about identifying them. There are alot of poisonous mushrooms out there that can make you very sick or even kill you. Do not use this article to identify your mushrooms, consult someone who is knowledgeable on the subject before eating any.

That being said, Chicken of the woods actually has no poisonous look alikes. This will probably make you feel alot better about eating them! They are a shelf mushroom, growing in flat brackets and can apparently get up to 100 lbs although I have yet to see that!

They generally grow on or oak trees, although they will grow on other species as well. These mushrooms will eventually rot whatever tree they are growing on so it's common to find them on old stumps and tree roots. They can be found from late spring to early Fall.

They are varying shades of bright orange, and the smaller ones are more tender to eat. If you find a particularly large bracket they can occasionally be riddled with insects and I don't bother gathering them. These mushrooms are completely smooth on the bottom and often have a light colored ring around the edge of each bracket. They're extremely easy to spot due to their bright colors, and will often come back year after year. I prefer to cut them off the tree with a knife and leave the base attached, although I'm not sure if this really makes a difference.

Preparing them is very easy. They can be substituted in virtually any chicken dish, and make a great soup as well.

The easiest way to prepare them, and my husband's favorite, is to simply chicken fry them and serve with dipping sauce.

Separate each shelf bracket to make cleaning them easier.

If you are working with larger brackets, I like to cut off the extremely thick parts at the base as they tend to be a bit tough.

You don't want to soak these mushrooms, they will soak up the water like a sponge and become rubbery and bland. Simply wipe them down well with a wet paper towel to get all dirt off of them.

Slice them into thin strips.

Once done slicing I toss them into an egg wash while I prepare my coating.

You can use bread crumbs, corn meal, fish fry or whatever breading you desire. I like to make my own seasoned flour (roughly 2 cups of flour and 1 tablespoon each of garlic powder, salt, and paprika, 1 teaspoon each of pepper and cumin, and a dash of cayenne.)

Remove the mushrooms from the egg wash and coat in the seasoned flour. If you want a thick breading, return to the egg wash and coat in the flour a second time.