Monthly Archives: June 2013

Saskatoon Berry Sauce

saskatoon1IN EASTERN WASHINGTON, wild Saskatoons (Amelanchier alnifolia)—aka western serviceberry, shadbush, and juneberry—grow near the extensive orchards of cherries, apples, and pears that follow the river valleys. It’s interesting to see how this free food is all but ignored.

saskatoon2A Saskatoon sauce is just the thing this time of year to dress up a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Or you can add some vinegar and herbs to make a savory sauce.

Remember that these berries have noticeable seeds. The seeds add a nutty dimension to the flavor, but if you’re picky about your texture, you can cook the sauce down (with more time and water) and run it through a food mill or strainer.

saskatoon32 cups Saskatoon berries
1 cup water
1/4 cup sugar, or to taste
2 tbsp lemon juice
lemon zest, to taste

Bring the berries and water to boil in a sauce pan. Reduce heat and simmer for several minutes. Whisk in sugar, lemon juice, and zest. Continue to simmer and whisk until sauce is thickened to taste. Add more water if necessary.

saskatoon4

Marvelous Morels

It’s been a good year for morels throughout much of the country, though your own mileage may vary. I picked my first “naturals” in the third week in April and the action in Washington State hasn’t slowed since.

 

Mushroom hunters across North America have had a chance to put new names to several familiar faces this spring. Last year, in the September-October issue of Mycologia, Michael Kuo et al proposed a revision to morel taxonomy that added a number of new species to the lineup. (An identification key can be found here.) For the first time, those of us in the West could reliably identify our beloved natural black morel as Morchella snyderi, with its habitat in unburned forest, lacunose stem, and black ridges on the cap. Another not-so-scientific identifying feature that I use, especially in areas where naturals and burn morels are in close proximity, is feel: naturals are noticeably cool to the touch.

We’ve also seen fair numbers of that confounding morel, the “mountain blond,” found in unburned western montane forests of mixed fir and pine (a commercial hunter I know insists that ponderosa must be present nearby to find this mushroom). Some years we get very few, for reasons that are not readily apparent, and their fruiting tends to be in scattered locales. Mountain blonds have the same coloration as yellow morels (i.e. Morchella esculentoides), but their morphology is more akin to black morels; turns out they’re part of the black morel group (or clade), a taxonomic revelation that didn’t surprise anyone who works with these mushrooms from year to year. While they’re one of our most beautiful morels, sadly, their flavor in the pan is less than striking. In the new classification, they carry the apt name Morchella frustrata.

In addition to the naturals, mushroom hunters in the Pacific Northwest have benefitted from the region’s fire ecology, with a number of last year’s burns producing decent—if not epic—morel picking across eastern Washington and Idaho. So far the biggest of them all, the 45,000-acre Table Mountain complex, has proved something of a bust. Never have so many footsteps yielded so few mushrooms. This burn is getting stomped by a stampede of both commercial and recreational pickers, and the lower elevation habitat never had a chance to take off with so much pressure. Hopefully the crowds will thin as more ground becomes available in Idaho and elsewhere and we’ll have a decent pick on top at higher elevation. Meanwhile, the mushroom hunter using strategery has done well in a host of smaller burns.

Anyone with experience picking burn morels knows there are lots of different looking species that emerge from the ash, especially in the greater Pacific Northwest. How many of these are different enough in their DNA to warrant species status remains to be seen. So far we have Morchella sextelata and M. septimelata, which are apparently impossible to separate without a microscope, plus M. capitata, told by its chambered stem, and the visibly distinctive “gray” or “fuzzyfoot” morel, M. tomentosa. The latter is perhaps the most coveted morel by chefs in the know; large and beefy, it’s one of the last of the burn morels to show and is just getting started where I’ve been hunting. There are others. A morel that looks just like the mountain blond, M. frustrata, appears sparingly in burns as well. And then there’s the banana…and the greenie…

Morels pair especially well with seafood. The dish pictured at top and bottom is pan-seared sea scallops with fingerling potatoes and sautéed morels in a green pea sauce. A simple and elegant way to enjoy one of the fleeting culinary treasures of spring.

Salmon Head Curry

A HARD-WON Columbia River spring chinook salmon is so tasty it would be a crime to leave any scraps of meat uneaten. This spicy Indian curry will have you reconsidering what you do with those leftover salmon heads. Crab bait? I think not…

1 medium to large salmon head, gills removed and cut in half
1 tsp black mustard seed (or yellow)
1 tsp cumin seed
1 tsp fenugreek seed
3 tbsp peanut oil
1 tsp red chili powder
1/2 tsp turmeric
2 – 3 tbsp fish curry powder*
6 cloves garlic, minced
1 thumb ginger, peeled and minced

2 sweet onions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp tamarind paste, mixed with 1/2 cup water 
2 Asian eggplant, cut into 3-inch pieces
1 zucchini, cut into 3-inch pieces
3 tomatoes, cut into sixths
1 cup coconut cream
1 tbsp brown sugar, or to taste
2 tbsp fish sauce, or to taste
cilantro for garnish

* Make your own fish curry powder, or visit an Indian grocery or spice shop for a prepared blend.

1. Mix chili powder, turmeric, and fish curry powder with a little water to make a thick masala paste.

2. Heat oil in heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat. Add mustard seed, cumin seed, and fenugreek seed and sauté until they begin to crackle and pop, about a minute.

3. Add masala paste, stirring, until fragrant, another minute or so. Add garlic, ginger, and onions, and cook together until onions are soft.

4. Pour in tamarind mixture and bring to boil. Add tomatoes, eggplant, and zucchini. Cook a couple minutes before adding both halves of salmon head. (Add more water if necessary, though note that the vegetables and fish will add to liquid as they cook.) Spoon curry over salmon, reduce heat to medium-low, and cover for 5 minutes.

5. Stir in coconut cream, brown sugar, and fish sauce, careful not to disturb fish. Cook another couple minutes until fish is done yet still tender. At this point, if you’re serving squeamish guests, you can separate the salmon meat from the skin and cartilage. Maybe leave in one eyeball for a lucky diner. Garnish with fresh cilantro.