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Monday, May 27, 2013

Morels!

Morels (Morchella esculenta)
Morels were starting to seem like a mythical beast. I had heard tell of their wondrous beauty and tastiness, but had spoken to no one who had actually seen them in New England: even the author of our mushroom book writes that he has never found them round here.

With no idea where to look, it seemed like there was slim chance of finding any. The book suggested old apple orchards, so last weekend we hiked up to an old orchard in Concord, NH to look for morels. We found soooooo many dog ticks (or rather they found us), and thus failed to really do much of a hunt, let alone score any shrooms.

This weekend we were not even thinking of looking for morels. We'd had an epic weekend adventure, with lady's slipper orchids and snakes and a surfer on a standing wave and dinosaur footprints and alpacas and so so much. Seb and I just took a little walk at the place we were hanging out by a lake with our friends' family, and all of a sudden we spotted morels! Big, beautiful, yellow-light brown ones: about 6 inches tall. The first few we saw were a little decrepit, but we found a couple more in good condition.

I was excited to get them home! The three morels were not much, just enough for a snack. I decided just to saute them with a tiny bit of garlic, some parsley and mirin, and eat them on little toasts.

(serves two, as snack or starter sized portions)

1 tbsp olive oil (plus a little more for drizzling)
3 morels, carefully washed, cleaned and chopped
1/4 of a small clove of garlic, finely chopped (optional)
1/4 tbsp curly parsley, chopped (plus a pinch more to finish)
1/2 tsp mirin
1/2 tsp fake butter
salt+pepper
2 slices of baguette

Make sure the morels are well cleaned: I washed them under the tap and then patted them dry with paper towels, then chopped off any substandard looking bits and checked them carefully / removed any dirt.

Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add garlic (make sure to use just a smidge: the morel taste is quite subtle), and fry for a minute or so, until just starting to brown. Add the chopped morels and fry for a few minutes more, until they have released their juices and reabsorbed them. Meanwhile, heat a dry frying pan and toast the baguette slices, a couple of minutes on each side, until crisp and slightly browned. When the morels start to look lightly browned around the edges add the mirin and fake butter and fry for a minute more. Finally, add the parsley and salt and pepper to taste. To serve, drizzle the toasts with a little olive oil, spoon the mushrooms over and sprinkle with a little more chopped parsley.


Gentle washing seemed to be fine: these guys are not very porous and were quite tricky to clean so the washing helped. This was a tasty little plate, although I wondered if the garlic, small amount though it was, might have been too much: the morel taste was quite subtle. They had a good, firm texture, and tasted slightly sweet and gently mushroomy. They were good. Wish we had more now, my how greedy I am.
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