Chicken of the woods: chicken from a tree, and why you never eat it raw

In June you sometimes see them along a cycle path: bright yellow to orange fans, layered on top of each other on an old oak or willow, the size of a cushion. Chicken of the woods, Laetiporus sulphureus, is impossible to miss and impossible to confuse. The name is no exaggeration: young and properly cooked it has the fibrous bite and mild flavour of chicken meat. It can be grown too, with plug spawn, provided you know this is a species that takes time and comes with two rules.

How do you recognise chicken of the woods?

By colour and shape. Fan-shaped, thick brackets without a stem, orange on top and sulphur yellow underneath, growing from the wood in overlapping tiers. No gills but tiny pores on the underside. Young, the flesh is soft, juicy and pale; over the weeks it turns paler, drier and chalky. An old chicken of the woods is white, crumbly and worthless. Confusion with poisonous species is practically nil in north-west Europe, nothing else grows on wood in this colour and shape.

Rule 1: never raw, always cooked through

Chicken of the woods contains compounds that, raw or half-cooked, give some people stomach upsets, and that group is larger than with most edible mushrooms. A quick stir-fry is not enough here. Cut it into slices or strips and fry, stew or grill it thoroughly for at least ten to fifteen minutes. The first time, eat a small portion to see how your body responds, and only eat young, juicy specimens. Stick to this rule and you will almost never have trouble. Ignore it and you may spend a night in the bathroom.

Rule 2: mind the tree

Chicken of the woods absorbs compounds from the wood it grows on. Specimens from yew, and according to some sources also from eucalyptus and conifers, can cause complaints that specimens from oak or willow do not. On a log you inoculated yourself this does not arise, because you chose the wood. For foragers: only eat from oak, willow, cherry, chestnut or beech, and if in doubt about the tree, leave it.

Why is this a patience species?

Because it wants to grow big. Chicken of the woods does not make a modest cap but a fruiting body of sometimes several kilos, and for that it needs the reserves of a thick log. On a thin branch it never gets going. Take an oak or willow log of at least 25 centimetres thick, preferably more, or a fresh stump, and inoculate it in February or March as described in our inoculation season piece. Expect two to three years before the first fans appear, usually in summer after a wet spell. After that the same log can produce for five to ten years. Chicken of the woods is a brown rot fungus: it slowly breaks the log down and lives off that decay, so the log eventually gives out, but it takes a while.

When do you harvest?

Young, while the edges are still thick, soft and juicy and the yellow still bright. Cut off the outer ten centimetres of the fans and leave the rest; it keeps growing. A mature specimen is often already too tough at the base, so the edge is the part you want. A harvest from a large chicken of the woods is easily a kilo or more, which is a lot: cook it through and freeze it in portions, that works better than drying.

What does it taste like?

Like chicken, with a light lemony tang and a bite somewhere between chicken breast and soft cheese. It takes on flavour well. Diced and fried into a curry, in strips breaded like chicken nuggets, or in a stew where you would normally put chicken. Vegetarians who miss chicken have found their species here, and that is also why it is in our range: no other mushroom does this.

Who is chicken of the woods for?

Anyone with a thick oak or willow, or a fresh stump that has to decay anyway, and anyone with patience. Not for a first log and not for a small garden without big wood. Anyone who has that and knows the two rules grows the most spectacular mushroom that can be grown in a garden.