Fresh Morel mushrooms

[SWISS_CHEF]

That poularde looks wonderful.  I've never seen Vin Jaune anywhere - have any of you other U.S. members come across it?

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Well actually, I cheated a little because I didn't have a Bresse chicken or Vin Jaune so I improvised with a normal store bought chicken and a half half mixture of cheap German auslese riesling and dry sherry and the result was very close (BTW it makes a a great aperitif not unlike Lillet).

[Abra]

Oh, I wonder if I could just use Lillet, which I love?

I shudder to think of how much a poulet de Bresse would cost in Switzerland. When I lived for a few months in Geneva about 8 years ago a regular farm chicken could cost as much as $30. Food costs were just amazingly high there at that time.

[SWISS_CHEF]

Oh, I wonder if I could just use Lillet, which I love?

I shudder to think of how much a poulet de Bresse would cost in Switzerland.  When I lived for a few months in Geneva about 8 years ago a regular farm chicken could cost as much as $30.  Food costs were just amazingly high there at that time.

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Hi Abra,

Yes, use Lillet it will work fine….different, but fine. Arbois’ Vin Jaune is kind of a funky...sort of semi maderized, slightly sweet...well not really sweet... white wine., that can last a VERY long time (220 years see: http://www.domaine-martin.fr/english/vinja...vieux/vieux.htm )

More info: http://www.wine-pages.com/guests/wink/jura.htm

The Arbois region is very undiscovered and has it's own passionate followers, (my wife and I are two). In Europe I run into more and more people who have discovered the wines of the Arbois. Most Americans have never heard of them. Find them if you can.

As for chickens:

Well, it is expensive here now given the weak dollar. If you buy Swiss chickens in Migros or Coop you will pay about 9 to 13 CHF a kilo or US$3.50-5.00 per pound. If you go to Globus you might pay US$50 or more for a real Bresse Chicken. Because of Farmer subsidies, the trick to happiness in Switzerland is living close to a border.

Fortunately I live 2 miles from the German border and I can get fresh chickens in Germany for as low as US$1.2/pound....cheap and good.

40 minutes away in France I can buy DOC free range chickens (depends on the brand) for about US 2.50/pound ...pretty cheap given the quality. A proper Bresse chicken will cost at least US $30.00 and a cheap mass produced chicken will cost US 1.20 pound.

Just wondering...What brought you to Switzerland and do you miss it?

[Shelby]

Resurrecting this thread.

I just found some morels on my farm!!! I will be picking them tonight when we get home.

I have tons of fresh asparagus, too. Thinking about making a cream sauce with pasta. How long to morels need to cook? Are they as delicate as regular mushrooms?

Tips please

[Abra]

Well, here i stuffed them, and that was awesomely delicious as well as gorgeous. Try to keep them whole, or at least in half, for the beauty of them.

[Dianabanana]

If you've ever gone morel hunting, you know that they are particularly susceptible to becoming buggy. The hollow core can be a welcoming home to hundreds of creepy little worms (maggots?).

A couple of years ago I accidentally discovered the ideal method of de-worming morels.

I had read that it is better for future crops if you use a basket or some other perforated container when gathering wild mushrooms, so that the spores can fall to the forest floor as you're walking along. Whether this is true or not I can't say, but I decided to use a nylon mesh lingerie bag to hold my morels. It works great--very gentle to the mushrooms.

I got home late and didn't have the energy to deal with cleaning the morels, so I hung the lingerie on a mug hook mounted on the underside of a kitchen cabinet and went to bed.

In the morning I walked into the kitchen and discovered that the kitchen counter under the bag was a revolting, writhing mass of tiny worms. I don't know what exactly would have caused them to jump ship en masse, but the fact remains that they did. The morels were absolutely clean.

[Magictofu]

I wrote a long post on the morel season at http://slurpandburp.blogspot.com/2008/04/morel-season.html

My best dish with morel was lobster in a morel beurre blanc: http://slurpandburp.blogspot.com/2007/05/l...vegetables.html

Now that I have to take care of a one year old baby and that I spend almost all my free tim digging in my garden, I hardly find the time to go mushroom hunting, even though it would probably take me 2 or 3 hours to visit my usual spots and collect over 100 mushrooms. I can't wait for my son to be old enough to enjoy mushroom hunting with his dad.

[tim]

Resurrecting this thread.

I just found some morels on my farm!!!  I will be picking them tonight when we get home.

I have tons of fresh asparagus, too.  Thinking about making a cream sauce with pasta.  How long to morels need to cook?  Are they as delicate as regular mushrooms? 

Tips please 

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Shelby,

Morel stems can remain very tough after sauteeing. Many people discard them or save them for the stock pot. I chop the stems and stew them in butter for 30 minutes, they become tender and have wonderful flavor.

The caps may be sauteed on medium for 5 minutes in butter. You may then add a little cream and reduce as desired. A longer saute in low heat does not reduce the flavor or damage the texture. Just do not let them dry out in your pan and they are very forgiving.

Tim

Edited June 3, 2008 by tim (log)

[SobaAddict70]

They're wonderful sauteed in butter, and paired simply with either asparagus or fiddlehead ferns.

Or scallops.

[heidih]

These guys followed me home. Just had a few few minutes to grab lunch so have not cooked them yet. They were masses of them growing in the wells of the roses. Our field biologist (who is very careful) id'd them as true morels last year and the co-worker who pointed them out to me had some with eggs and cream last week. I have never eaten or cooked a morel so I am thinking super simple tonight. The co-worker simmered them in cream and then did a lightly scrambled egg on toasted homemade rustic wheat. Sounds good to me. Any other ideas for a simple use of just these few? I will be on the lookout for new young ones. There are quite a few that are darker on the rim and if you run your thumb across horizontally may be going towards mushy. I am clueless so all input welcome.

[janeer]

well i am jealous. .They do shine when cooked in some cream. I like them with pasta, or simply on grilled French bread with herbs. They are good with shrimp too.

[heidih]

I simmered in cream and enjoyed on toasted whole grain bread with grinds of pepper - lovely The odd part is that I live in Los Angeles - not morel hunting territory

[sparrowgrass]

I was wondering where you were, to be finding morels in the winter. They came in with the mulch, no doubt.

[SylviaLovegren]

When I was a kid my dad would get morels in the woods every spring. My mom never made them WITH anything, we just had sliced morels stewed in butter. All by themselves and served on a plate all by themselves. Every now and then, mom might stir a little cream into them but mostly it was the mushrooms all on their buttery lonesomeness. Eating them was a holy rite of spring. Not sure I ever ate anything better.

[rlibkind]

Purchased last spring at Dane County Farmers Market, Madison, Wisconsin, during my annual visit to UW. For transport via the drive back to Philadelphia I sautéed in butter, then packed then in portion-sized freezer bags which I then froze and brought back East in a cooler loaded with dry ice and other Wisconsin freeze able goodies. I pull out a bag when I want, most recently to serve alongside a savory cristless quiche.

[rotuts]

WoW!

rlibkind

as stunning as the Mush. gets.

did you get a supply of 'worms?'

I sure hope you did some stock or something from those stems!

many thanks for sharing!

now back to my pedestrian dinner ....

[FrogPrincesse]

I was wondering where you were, to be finding morels in the winter. They came in with the mulch, no doubt.

My guess as well. The same thing happened to me when we re-did our front yard. I had a great steak with morels and Marsala crème fraîche sauce that day! Unfortunately this was a one-time occurrence.

.

[heidih]

As a footnote - the gentleman who pointed the morels out to me noted that he cooked them two different ways. First simmered in milk and then turned into beaten eggs for a light scramble; second sauteed in oil. He thought the oil masked the delicate taste. Maybe butter would have been different. I was also wondering about some posts I read where the morels were allowed to dry out a bit. I ate mine within hours of picking and the taste/fragrance was clearly mushroomy in a nice way but at the same time quite delicate. Is there a preferred treatment after harvest? I ask in the event I find some more. As I noted they were in the rose wells which are in the sun so that was odd - it might just have been "all the stars aligning" for one harvest.

[janeer]

Purchased last spring at Dane County Farmers Market, Madison, Wisconsin, during my annual visit to UW. For transport via the drive back to Philadelphia I sautéed in butter, then packed then in portion-sized freezer bags which I then froze and brought back East in a cooler loaded with dry ice and other Wisconsin freeze able goodies. I pull out a bag when I want, most recently to serve alongside a savory cristless quiche.

I have never seen anything like those!

[nibor]

As a footnote - the gentleman who pointed the morels out to me noted that he cooked them two different ways. First simmered in milk and then turned into beaten eggs for a light scramble; second sauteed in oil. He thought the oil masked the delicate taste. Maybe butter would have been different. I was also wondering about some posts I read where the morels were allowed to dry out a bit. I ate mine within hours of picking and the taste/fragrance was clearly mushroomy in a nice way but at the same time quite delicate. Is there a preferred treatment after harvest? I ask in the event I find some more. As I noted they were in the rose wells which are in the sun so that was odd - it might just have been "all the stars aligning" for one harvest.

I grew up finding & eating morels. We cleaned them, sliced them, sauteed them in butter and ate them ASAP. Never thought of waiting.

[LaurieB]

Some good friends gifted us last season with some morels and this is what I gifted back:

CREAMED MORELS ON BRIOCHE

¼ pound morels, trimmed and sliced

1 clove garlic, minced

1 ½ T. butter

½ cup dry red wine

½ cup heavy cream

S and P, q b

2 brioche rolls

Slice the tops off the brioche, hollow out insides. Brush with melted butter

and bake at 350* til toasted. Reserve.

Saute the morels in butter til soft. Add garlic. Add wine and cook til

wine is nearly evaporated. Add the cream and cook until

slightly thickened. Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve hot in the hot brioche.

[SylviaLovegren]

Purchased last spring at Dane County Farmers Market, Madison, Wisconsin, during my annual visit to UW. For transport via the drive back to Philadelphia I sautéed in butter, then packed then in portion-sized freezer bags which I then froze and brought back East in a cooler loaded with dry ice and other Wisconsin freeze able goodies. I pull out a bag when I want, most recently to serve alongside a savory cristless quiche.

Wow! I never saw anything like THAT in the Washington woods. Brobdinagian morels grow in the midwest! Are they tougher than smaller ones?

[Alex]

Purchased last spring at Dane County Farmers Market, Madison, Wisconsin, during my annual visit to UW. For transport via the drive back to Philadelphia I sautéed in butter, then packed then in portion-sized freezer bags which I then froze and brought back East in a cooler loaded with dry ice and other Wisconsin freeze able goodies. I pull out a bag when I want, most recently to serve alongside a savory cristless quiche.

Wow! I never saw anything like THAT in the Washington woods. Brobdinagian morels grow in the midwest! Are they tougher than smaller ones?

It's all those nuclear power reactors nearby.

[rlibkind]

Not tough at all since they were very fresh. Some of these had fruiting bodies of 5-6 inches, not counting the stems. The stems were only slightly tougher. Ans these had no worms, just an occasional bug (good protein!). The per pound price worked out to about $35, almost half what I'd pay at a Philadelphia farmer's market or produce stall at the Reading Terminal Market.

Creamed on toast/brioche is a definite winner, as is just about any egg dish. Most memorable I've ever had was about a dozen years ago at Madison's L'Etoile where morels, other spring mushrooms and asparagus were sauced with a beurre blanc around a ring of savory flan.

[kayb]

Bumping this up to ask a morel question, inspired by a photo I saw on Facebook today of morel hunting in Missouri. Since I live some 40 miles south of the MO line, I'm wondering what the area of the country actually is where morels grow. When are they "ripe"? In what kind of terrain/ground cover does one find them? Any tips on morel foraging? I'm contemplating a road trip to the nearest morel hunting lands, should they be nearby. The foothills of the Ozarks are within easy striking distance, and I know people who have hunting land who would have no objection to me hunting life forms which do not move about on four feet.