Finally following up!
Short, short version:
- Cold-smoked on cherry three hours, rested half-hour, diced, incorporated into stuffing mix, baked. Worked out great!
Less short version:
- Since I was wary of bitterness, I chose cherry, the sweetest of the woods I currently have. I think apple would have worked well, too, maybe better.
- Since it was going to get cooked with the rest of the stuffing anyway, I figured no need to cook it twice (and potentially overdrying, if that's a risk?) so I opted to cold-smoke.
- Halved the larger ones, to give a little more surface area while still being easy to handle.
- Three hours was a shot in the dark, but I was taking inspiration from cold-smoking cheeses - and three hours was manageable.
- Resting cheeses takes a lot longer, but I still wanted to give the smoke/mushrooms at least a little chance to even out a little bit so I covered them up and kept them cool.
- After half an hour resting, I was a little concerned by condensation giving them a bit of a slimy exterior, so I went ahead and diced them up, along with unsmoked shiitakes and onion.
- Stuffing was just like regular stuffing, but with {the mushrooms, an extra pinch of salt, and a touch of extra avocado oil} substituted for {bacon}
- The vegetarians pivoted away from the (other peoples'
) green bean casserole and corn pie in favor of the mushroom stuffing. What little I did get (and I don't mind) went very well with the turkey and glazed ham.
- Excess mushrooms went to the vegetarians in to-go bags for their own cooking projects at home: a salad, a pizza, and a soup, I'm told.
Thanksgiving meant I was a *little bit* too busy for photo-taking, sorry: the mushrooms looked like mushrooms, but now with a rose-gold finish. And a heck of an aroma.
Will definitely consider doing again for use in ramen and on pizza. Will also look into various stuffed, hot-smoked approaches, too.
