Mise En Place: Fungus Amungus
In the Spring, a young man’s fancy may lightly turn to thoughts of love, but in the fall, a middle-ager like me fancies himself some fungus.
No, not the crud underneath my big toenail. Fungus, as in funghi. The object of a mycologist’s obsession. Mushrooms!
Our sodden weather combined with plentiful coniferous forests make for primo mushroom hunting and there is no time (as they say) like the present when it comes to mushrooms. Oh sure, spring has its elusive (and expensive) morels, which are delicious sautéed and served with a green peppercorn cream sauce over a medium rare filet. But nothing beats those golden trumpets of fungal finesse, for either their flavor or their autumnal ubiquity.
No doubt, chanterelles often command a king’s ransom, with MSRP often reaching $20 or more per pound at your local gourmet grocers (Metropolitan Market, I’m talking to you). However, if you get even slightly off the beaten path, the price descends dramatically. Why just the other day a pickup truck pulled off the road near the former Beach House restaurant in Purdy was selling gigantic chanterelles for just $4.99 a pound. At that price you can justify using them to gussy up a frozen Red Barron pizza. Needless to say, I was a buyer.
Even better is if you can forage them for yourself. Of course this requires that you get out in the woods and tramp around a bit. If you are so inclined, please remember your blaze orange vest and cap. It’s hunting season out there and not everybody with a firearm knows what they are doing, or the sense they were born with for that matter.
While chanterelles are far more common than the reclusive morel, you still need to know where to look. Clearly some people have the knack for this, but getting a ‘shroomer to cough up the coordinates of her or his “C-Spot” is no simple task. Ask a fungi forager where they find their stash and they become about as secretive as a fifteen year old with his first Playboy. For example, the other day I was talking to my friend D-Love (not his real name). He was waxing eloquent about how he had collected nearly ten pounds of chanterelles not three days previous, in just three hours of foraging no less. Holy cow, that’s like $200 street value! It was so easy, he blustered, that he was seeing them from the road.
“For the love of God, man,” I begged. “Where did you find them?”
D-Love looked down and stubbed his toe in the ground. “Uh, up in the foothills.”
“Foothills. Sure, right. WHERE in the foothills?”
D-Love gestured vaguely. “Um, around Mt. Rainier. Up thata way.” So it goes. When it comes to spilling the beans, mushroom foragers make fishermen look like Watergate whistleblower John Dean. Usually sans the tortoiseshell spectacles.
At $5/lb though, one wonders if it’s even worth the gas money necessary to get to chanterelle country. Sure they aren’t priced there forever, but I’ve learned a neat trick for chanterelles. They freeze great. The trick here is to sauté your batch just “half-way” as it was originally explained to me. You can even add your garlic and shallots should you wish. A light sauté in unsalted butter persuades the funghi to part with their liquid, so their delicate cellular structure isn’t destroyed by the inevitable expansion of water when frozen. You can fry several pounds of chanterelles, pack them in individual portions and enjoy them for months to come.
Native Washingtonians all have their favorite chanterelle recipes, and they are far more likely to share cooking methods than they are locations. Cooked in a cream sauce is certainly a classic. Chanterelles and cream go together like milk and cookies. Whether you pour that cream sauce over linguine, a pan-roasted pheasant breast or a panko-crusted slab of halibut, you won’t be disappointed. Last year at this time, my favorite Tacoma restaurant (Pacific Grill) had beer-battered, deep-fried chanterelles that were about the best bar snack I have ever put between my lips. Finally, while I have never actually tried this, I keep dreaming about a supremely decadent lunch that includes about a pound of chanterelles sautéed in Irish butter and garlic, bread from La Brea bakery, and washed down with a demi-bottle of ice-cold Les Clos Chablis. You have your fantasies, I have mine.
Got a recipe for chanterelles? Let’s hear it. Alternatively, slide a note under the door at Exit133 with detailed directions to a reliable chanterelle spot. I won’t tell a soul. Promise.
Pheasant with Chanterelle-Apple Cream Sauce
4 boneless, skinless pheasant breasts (sub in chicken if you can’t find or shoot a pheasant)
Seasoned flour for dredging
1 granny smith apple, peeled cored and diced
½ pound chanterelle mushrooms
1 shallot, diced fine
2 cloves garlic, diced fine
¼ cup vermouth
1 cup heavy cream
Dredge pheasant breasts in flour and sauté in heavy frying pan until golden brown and cooked through. Remove from pan and tent to keep warm.
Add small amount of olive oil to the pan and sauté shallots and garlic. Add chanterelles and sliced apple and continue to sauté 3-5 minutes. Add vermouth and deglaze pan, scraping up brown bits. Reduce until vermouth is almost gone. Add cream and reduce by 1/3rd. Return pheasant breasts to pan to coat with cream sauce.
Filed under: mise-en-place
7 comments
G Gordon Naccarato October 12, 2010
John, nice article. My favorite way to serve Chanterelles is sliced and sautéed in some butter with garlic and shallots, S + P until they are cooked and have given up some of their juices. Add some chopped Italian parsley & fresh thyme. Let the juices reduce a little (especially if you add a splash of white wine and/or chicken stock) and at the last second swirl in some additional butter to give the sauce some body.
Check & correct seasonings. Serve over some grilled rustic sourdough bread from La Brea Bakery, and a small tuft of arugula.
If you like add a few drops of white truffle oil and some shaved reggiano cheese, and serve with a squeeze of fresh lemon juice. And when I say drops —I mean with an eye dropper— otherwise the truffle oil will overpower the dish. And if you don’t want to go to all that trouble—come by Pacific Grill where we are serving this dish while chanterelles are in season :)
J James October 13, 2010
My favorite preservation method for freezing is sauteeing them at high heat in a dry cast iron pan. As they heat up you can spoon off the water and then at the end deglaze the pan before starting the next batch. Reserve that deglazed liquid for mushroom risotto. You cook them down until they just barely start sticking and then spoon them out (and deglaze). I then cool them in the refrigerator overnight before spraying a pan with olive oil pam and “flash-freezing” on the pan. You can then break them up and put them in a Ziploc bag and you have total portion control.
A Aura Mae October 14, 2010
Crab, Corn & Chanterelle Chowder
by Aura Mae on Monday, October 11, 2010 at 8:44pm
6 ears yellow corn
1 quart chicken stock
1 quart heavy cream
6 slices thick cut bacon, chopped
1 finely chopped onion
5 stalks finely chopped celery
1.5 pounds white-skinned potatoes, in 1/2” cubes
bundle of fresh thyme
1.2 pound fresh Chanterelle mushrooms, roasted
rendered bacon fat
2_-4 tablespoons butter
1 pound fresh crab meat (Dungeness preferred)
Prep mushrooms: place on a cooling rack over cookie sheet in 300 degree oven until they give up all their moisture. Collect the liquid.
Cut kernels off corn cob and set aside. Place cobs in soup pot with stock, cream & mushroom liquor. Add salt & pepper to taste. Simmer 10 minutes and remove from heat. Discard cobs.
In heavy pan, cook bacon till crisp and remove to paper towel. Do not discard fat. (If you don’t have enough fat to saute the onions, add butter) Add onions & celery to pan and saute about 5 minutes. Toss cubed potatoes in just enough flour to lightly coat, then add to onion/celery mixture and combine. Grate in a fair amount of fresh nutmeg. Add vegetables to liquid and stir.
Add butter to the pan you used to saute and add mushrooms. Cook until tender. Sprinkle with salt. Add to soup and stir. Place thyme bundle on top and cover. Simmer.
When potatoes are almost fork tender, add corn and taste for seasoning. Continue simmering until potatoes are tender. Stir in crab and bacon and remove thyme bundle about 5-10 minutes before serving.
J John Idstrom October 14, 2010
Crab, cream, chanterelles and bacon? I think I’m in. That sounds awesome.
M Maria October 14, 2010
Popular in the Asian community:
Heat pan to medium high. Melt about 1 T. butter. Toss in 2 or so cups of sliced chanterelles. Add about 1/4 c. sliced onions, 5 cloves garlic and 1/4 c. green onions. Salt & pepper to taste. When mushrooms are almost done, sprinkle with about 2 T. soy sauce to add additional umami and deglaze the pan. A little bit of beef stock (dashida) also warms up the taste.
Variation: add sesame seeds or sesame oil for a slightly more “Asian” taste. Sometimes zucchini or other fall veggies are sliced thin and thrown in also.
Someone gave me a bag of matsutake mushrooms (the kind with a light pine scent), but I don’t care for them as much as the chanterelles.
D Donald Hurley October 15, 2010
John, great article! I always enjoy your writing, humor, and the added benefit of a great recipe. Nice yarn! I was thinking that back here in Minnesota, I might try your green peppercorn cream sauce with the morels which I obtained from a guy I caught trespassing on our wooded property and out of fright dropped his morel harvest while running off. Still don’t know where he found them even though I have scoured the entire property trying to locate his spot on my land.
Hey, the mud hens are starting to migrate through the state as well, any recipes for coot?
J John Idstrom October 15, 2010
Mudhen? Aka the Ivory-billed Canvasback? The only thing to recommend is a Coot Confit.