While these two mushrooms look a like, they are very different in taste…and texture too. The oyster mushrooms are great mushrooms that have a sweet taste to them while the maitake mushrooms are very earthy and fruity. The ones I purchased had a strong lemon taste to them. Yes, I tried them all before cooking them.
They cook pretty much the same and when cooked together made for an awesome medley of fungi. For me, I could taste the difference but no one really noticed that they were eating two kinds of mushrooms.
For this, I’ll always lean towards the oyster because of the cost but if I really needed a deep earthy flavor, I’d go with the maitake. But knowing some people’s palate, I’d probably just use oysters and regular brown mushrooms.
I think maitake are delicious stir-fried with beef and oyster sauce.
Absolutely! I need to explore more mushrooms.
I am recently obsessed with blue oyster mushrooms but assumed they were maytake. Not sure why-assuming the similar look… wish I could find them in our local grassroots markets.