Garden mushroom harvest

Harvested a bunch of Psathyrella candolleana from the garden and cooked them with onion, peppers, and tomatoes sautéed in hoisin sauce and served over wild rice. I went to great lengths in learning how to identify these crumble cap mushrooms. Please read my "Note about eating wild mushrooms" at the end of this post.

The mushroom is edible, but is so tiny and fragile most references say it's hardly worth the effort. It's commonly called crumble cap for good reason.

The caps didn't hold up well to cooking but the stems did. I added the mushrooms as the final step, folding them into the cooked veggies with the heat off. The mushrooms have a mild taste woody with a slight nuttiness and a hint of radish.

Note about eating wild mushrooms:
The spore print was key in identifying Psathyrella candolleana, according to the person who identified it online. There are many mushrooms that resemble each other, but have different color spore prints or growth habits. Indicators for Psathyrella candolleana include the mushroom's size (2 to 5 inches tall, they are quite variable), change in color as it matures (they often start dark colored and begin to lighten as they grow; however, sometimes they are dark colored the entire time), and the way the cap matures (it splits and turns convex, before completely falling apart). The final bit of info that gave me the confidence to actually try eating one was having an experienced forager look at it and confirm it's a mushroom she'd eaten before.

When trying a new mushroom I've read that foragers keep a mushroom in safe keeping in case of poisoning, that way it can accompany them to the emergency room. At first, I ate a single cap and kept a few caps in the fridge, just in case. A few days later, I ate a handful. Since I didn't feel sick and they tasted earthy with a hint of radish, I decided to harvest all I could the next time it rain and made the dish in this blog post. I'm still alive!