vs.
Yesterday, I posted part two of the great mushroom debate. The question posed was does salting effect the time it takes a mushroom to brown? I couldn’t find much research on this, so I went straight to the source for the science behind cooking Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking. Believe me I was surprised when he responded back this morning to my email. McGee seems to confirm my findings from yesterday, that salting mushrooms may actually cause the mushrooms to take less time to brown. I found 5 minutes vs. 7 minutes in pan testing. Here’s his email response for those of you who are interested.
“Dear Nicky,
Thanks very much for your message and kind words! About mushrooms: of course they contain a ton of water, and unless you heat them very quickly in a very hot pan–as in stir-frying–they will give up that water and won’t really brown properly until it boils off. So I would think that salting actually speeds this process up by helping to pull the water out. But this is probably a minor effect compared to the heating itself. Salt can only affect the very outer layer of cells, while heat acts throughout the tissue.
Best wishes,
Harold”