Grey Oyster
₹180250 g · keeps 5 days
The one the farm is named for. Soft, savoury and forgiving. Tear it, do not cut it, and give it a very hot pan.
Good for: stir-fries, omelettes, anything with garlic
Dhingri & Co.
Gourmet mushrooms, grown slowly in the hills
14kinds of mushroom through the year
36 hfrom the block to your door
4,200home kitchens on the weekly list
61restaurants we grow for
0sprays, ever, on anything
1,520 mabove sea level, and cool for it
01 · the farm
One organism, many fruiting bodies
Dhingri is what an oyster mushroom is called in the hills, and it is where we started: forty bags of straw in a disused apple store in 2018. Solan is cool, damp and a little short of light, which is exactly what a mushroom wants. Today three growing rooms and a small lab turn out about 900 kg a week. Nothing is sprayed, nothing is flown, and nothing waits in a cold store. A mushroom is the fruit of something much larger that lives in the block and never leaves the farm. We look after that part, and it does the rest.
Picked Tuesday and Friday · delivered Wednesday and Saturday
Free delivery over ₹1,200 · in a paper box, not plastic
Chandigarh, Delhi NCR, Shimla and pick-up at the farm gate
“I took lion’s mane off the menu twice because I could not get it fresh. Now it arrives on Wednesday still cold from the hill.”
“My children would not touch a mushroom. Then they grew their own on the kitchen windowsill and ate the lot.”
“The pink oysters lasted exactly as long as the card said they would. I respect a farm that tells you the truth about that.”
“We mulch four hundred apple trees with their spent blocks. The soil under those trees is the best on the slope.”
“I asked which shiitake to buy for a broth. They told me to buy the cheaper one and keep the stems.”
02 · this week’s harvest
Fruiting bodies
Pink Oyster
₹240200 g · keeps 3 days
Bright coral when raw, golden when cooked, with a smoky edge people compare to bacon. Fragile, so we pick it last.
Good for: frying crisp, tacos, on toast
Lion’s Mane
₹420200 g · keeps 6 days
A white, shaggy pom-pom that pulls apart like crab. Press it flat in a pan with butter until the edges brown.
Good for: steaks, “crab” cakes, slow roasting
King Trumpet
₹320300 g · keeps 8 days
Thick ivory stems with almost no cap. Slice into rounds, score them, and sear like scallops.
Good for: grilling, skewers, slicing thin for pasta
Shiitake
₹360250 g · keeps 7 days
Grown on oak sawdust for eleven weeks, which is why it tastes like more than a mushroom. The stems make the best stock.
Good for: broths, rice, anything simmered
Chestnut
₹260250 g · keeps 6 days
Small, firm and nutty, in tight clusters. It holds its bite through long cooking where others give up.
Good for: risotto, curries, pickling
The Mixed Box
₹690900 g · five kinds
Whatever is best that morning, chosen by the person who picked it. Comes with a card saying what each one is and what to do with it.
Good for: a week of dinners for two
Grow-at-home Kit
₹550One block · fruits twice
A colonised oyster block in a box. Cut a cross, mist it morning and night, and harvest in about ten days.
Good for: children, windowsills, the curious
Your basket
Nothing in it yet. Add something from the harvest above.
- Mushrooms
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03 · kitchen notes
Spores of advice, free with every box
01
Do not wash themA dry brush or a damp cloth. Water is what makes mushrooms slimy.
02
Hot pan, then fatDry-fry for two minutes first so they brown before they stew.
03
Do not crowd the panOne layer, with gaps. Cook in two batches if you have to.
04
Salt at the endSalt early and they give up their water and boil in it.
05
Paper bag, not plasticIn the fridge door, not the drawer. They need to breathe.
06
Tear oysters by handAlong the gills. Ragged edges catch more of the pan.
07
Keep the stemsShiitake and king trumpet stems make a stock in twenty minutes.
08
Lion’s mane likes a weightPress it under a second pan for the first three minutes.
09
Past their best?Slice thin, dry in a low oven, and grind into a seasoning.
10
They freeze, cookedFry first, cool, then freeze flat. Never freeze them raw.
11
Sunlight helpsTwenty minutes gills-up on a windowsill raises their vitamin D.
04 · how it grows
Growth rings
Day 0 — The substrate
Straw from farms in the valley is chopped, soaked and steamed for six hours to clear out everything that is not a mushroom.
Day 1 — Inoculation
We fold in spawn raised in our own lab, bag it, and move the blocks to a dark room held at twenty-four degrees.
Days 2 to 21 — The run
The mycelium threads through the block until the whole thing turns white. We check it and otherwise leave it alone.
Days 22 to 26 — Pinning
A drop to sixteen degrees and a little daylight tells the block it is autumn. Pins the size of match heads appear overnight.
Days 27 to 30 — Harvest
They double in size every day. We pick by hand at dawn, pack in paper, and the van leaves for the plains at eight.
05 · the numbers
Enzymes
Left from this week’s harvest
Fruiting room 2, right now
In 100 g of oyster, of a day’s need
Where a spent block goes
06 · the weekly list
Network traffic
A Mixed Box every week · ₹620 instead of ₹690, skip any week by Monday night
Every other week · ₹650, for households of one or two
Restaurants · standing orders from 3 kg, grown to the size and stage you ask for
Farm visits: Saturdays at 10 am · free, twelve people, wear something warm
08 · write to the farm