Spring Shiitake Mushroom Salad with Edamame

Late last summer, while researching and planning food segments for Weekends with Yankee, we heard about a pair of recent Harvard grads growing shiitakes on a secret woodland farm on Martha’s Vineyard.

It seemed so unlikely. Shiitakes? On the Vineyard? But it turns out the climate of the Vineyard resembles that of the regions in Japan where the world’s best shiitakes are grown. And as vegetarians, MV Mycological’s Tucker Pforzheimer and Truman French saw this crop as a delicious and sustainable source of protein. They wanted to, as they put it, “bring differentiation to the commercial mushroom market,” showing people that there’s more to shiitakes than the sometimes-desiccated specimens you find at supermarkets.

So we headed out to their farm in Chilmark, in a spot so secluded that we lost all sense of direction as we wound through the woods on a series of dirt roads. Once we reached the farm, we watched the two inoculate oak logs with spores and set them aside to mature until the “flower” of a ripe shiitake springs forth months later.

Picked fresh off the logs, MV’s mushrooms were nutty, sweet, and complex, with a distinct umami savoriness. I asked Tucker and Turner how they liked to eat their shiitakes, and they offered this simple technique of pan-searing them and finishing them with a rice vinegar. These shiitakes are wonderful paired with radishes, goat cheese, and edamame in a hearty spring mushroom salad.

For the Salad:

For the Dressing: