New-School Sautéed Mushrooms

You don’t have to be a professional chef to know that “saute” means to sear food in a small amount of hot fat so that it browns deeply and develops savory flavor. So you might wonder how I—a professional chef—came to conclude that the most important step when sauteing mushrooms is to first simmer them in water.

To explain, let me start by recounting what typically happens when you saute mushrooms. You heat a little oil in a skillet, throw in the sliced fungi, and toss them around. Pretty soon, there’s no oil left in the skillet, so you add a little more to lubricate the pan and encourage the browning that creates loads of new, rich-tasting flavor compounds. But