This traditional recipe works with any kind of dried mushrooms – morels, cepes, or shiitake. And, using the Instant Pot saves more than an entire day of soaking time. If you want to forgo even that hydration time, use fresh mushrooms like cremini.
For this recipe, I used dried shiitake mushrooms. They were really the only kind of dried mushrooms in my grocery store. When my family lived on their farm, they just gathered buckets of mushrooms from the woods around them. Those mushrooms were morels. If you have fresh mushrooms, try my recipe for Mushrooms in cream.
Shiitake mushrooms are much, much less expensive than morels. 25 grams of morel mushrooms runs around $25. So, instead of spending upwards of $200 on mushrooms on this recipe to rekindle my mom’s memories of Christmases past, it’s shiitake today.
Start off by rinsing the mushrooms in a colander. This gets off any soil.
Put the mushrooms in the Instant Pot along with 5 cups of water. Set the Instant Pot to High Pressure on Manual for 15 minutes. After the time is up, wait 10 minutes and then release the pressure. Drain the liquid and discard. The liquid can have flavour but is often bitter tasting.
While the mushrooms are hydrating, heat up a dry skillet on medium-high heat. I use an enameled cast iron skillet. As it’s heating up, dice up a large onion and garlic. I use more garlic than the traditional recipes. I use four large cloves of garlic because I just don’t think that the traditional one clove of garlic flavours enough. Based on your garlic preferences, you can adjust this to your liking.
When the skillet is hot, add four tablespoons of all purpose flour.
Stir constantly with a flat whisk (or any whisk) until the colour changes to a light brown.
In the Instant Pot set to Saute – Low, add 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Saute the onions and garlic until soft but without browning. As an option, you can also saute chopped dill with the onions.
Once the onions and garlic are tender,add the browned flour to make a smooth paste.
To this mixture, add 4 cups of water and stir occasionally with a whisk (or that flat whisk from earlier). Season with 1 teaspoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of ground pepper.
Slice up the mushrooms. If you’re using shiitakes, it’s best to remove the stems. If you’re lucky enough to be using a mushroom like a morel, leave those whole.
Add those mushrooms back into the Instant Pot. Set the pot to cook for 8 minutes on Manual using Low Pressure. Wait 10 minutes before releasing the pressure.
At this point, you can adjust the seasonings and stir in some optional chopped parsley or dill.
Equipment needed
- Instant Pot
- Colander
- Flat whisk
Time saved
How long does the traditional recipe take?
- Soaking the mushrooms overnight now eliminated using the Instant Pot
- Cooking time of over 45 minutes now about half an hour using the Instant Pot
* Instant Pot times are estimates but include pressurization, cooking and depressurization on the Instant Pot.
Instant Pot Pidpenky (Mushrooms) with Gravy
Ingredients
- 200 grams dried mushrooms like shiitakes, morels, cepes
- 1 large onion diced
- 4 large cloves of garlic diced
- 3 Tablespoons vegetable oil
- 4 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 4 cups hot water
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon pepper
- ½ cup chopped flat leaf parley or dill optional
Instructions
- Rinse 200 grams of dried mushrooms under running water to remove any excess dirt
- Place the dried mushrooms in the Instant Pot along with 5 cups of water. Set the Instant Pot to cook for 15 minutes on Manual using High Pressure. Wait 10 minutes after the cooking time ends and release the remaining pressure.
- Drain the mushrooms and discard the cooking water.
- Meanwhile, heat a dry non-stick skillet on medium-high heat. Add 4 Tablespoons of all-purpose flour and brown by stirring constantly.
- Chop the onion and garlic.
- Using the Saute function on Low, heat the 3 Tablespoons of vegetable oil with the chopped onion and garlic and cook until soft.
- Add the browned flour until combined. Add the 4 cups of hot water and simmer for about 10 minutes while you chop the mushrooms into slices.
- Season the gravy with 1 teaspoon of salt and an equal amount of ground pepper (or to taste).
- Set the Instant Pot to Manual with Low Pressure for 8 minutes. Wait 10 minutes after the cooking time for the pressure to reduce and release the excess steam.
- Stir together and add the optional dill or parsley.
- Smachnoho!
I used your method to re-hydrate my dried wild mushrooms to make my grandmother’s recipe for Sour Cream Mushroom Gravy, I save the cooking water to thin the gravy as need, this is so easy, no overnight soaking or simmering for hours!
Hi Michelle – your grandmother’s sour cream mushroom gravy sounds amazing! What can’t sour cream do?
I am confused by your comment. I cannot find any sour cream in the recipe. What am I missing. I’m asking because I really like sour cream and it sounds like a good idea but can’t figure out how it fits into the recipe.
Hi Buddy – I believe Michele was using this recipe’s method to hydrate the mushrooms for her sour cream mushroom gravy recipe. This recipe is intended for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner where no dairy or meat is served. But, you can stir sour cream into just about anything before you serve it.
I didn’t have enough dried mushrooms (porcini/cepes) to make this however I used your method to prep them in the instant pot then added them to my stovetop mushrooms. So much simpler, especially at Xmas when there’s so many time-consuming dishes to cook