DINING · SEASONAL DISHES

Melaleuca mushroom soup: a taste of the first rains

Melaleuca mushroom season is brief. Its initial bitterness softens in soup with chicken or seafood, leaving a distinctive sweetness associated with the first rains.

Some Phu Quoc foods appear only in season. After early rains dampen the forest floor, melaleuca mushrooms emerge among fallen leaves. Their characteristic bitterness mellows as they cook and gives the broth a flavour unlike any cultivated mushroom.

Melaleuca mushroom soup cooked with seafood, a way to prepare seasonal mushroom dishes in Phu Quoc. · Toplist

Fresh mushrooms are not always available

Melaleuca mushrooms usually only bloom for a very short period of time after heavy rains. The timing of mushroom growth and the harvest yield each year is entirely up to the judgment of the "mother of nature", so don't expect that you can enjoy fresh melaleuca mushrooms at any month of the year. When you see a restaurant offering melaleuca mushroom soup, ask them directly if they are cooking with freshly picked mushrooms, pre-prepared mushrooms that have been preserved in cold storage, or some other type of mushroom.

The soup pot in each house is different

Every kitchen makes the soup differently. Some use free-range chicken; others add prawns, squid, crab, fish cake or egg. A savoury broth softens the mushroom's slight bitterness while the flesh retains a gentle bite. There is no single standard recipe, so ask what is in the day's pot before ordering.

Let the bitterness be just enough

To eliminate the bitter taste, some chefs have the habit of boiling mushrooms in boiling water before adding them to cook soup. Mushrooms need to be cooked over fire to keep their characteristic crispiness. Diners with a history of allergies to shrimp, fish, squid or eggs should be especially careful to ask carefully about the ingredients for cooking the broth, because a seemingly frugal bowl of mushroom soup can contain a lot of seafood. And a very important rule: absolutely do not pick any strange mushrooms in the forest for cooking if you do not have an expert with you to accurately assess that it is melaleuca mushroom.