Khao Soi with Chicken & Chanterelles

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I learned how to make this dish from my friend Zack at The Fungivore, who spent time in Thailand before moving to Oaxaca where he now leads mushroom foraging and travel adventures. Though not traditional, chanterelles make a worthy addition with their fruity-fungally flavor and meatiness. I think of this as a hearty winter curry—and a smart way to use frozen chanterelles that I’ve put up for the year. We doubled the recipe to feed ten hungry foragers after a January day of mushroom hunting in the woods of Mendocino, pairing it with a Thai salad of pomelo, cabbage, and cilantro tossed with a dressing of blended lime juice, garlic, chili pepper, and fish sauce.

  • 1 can (4-oz) Penang curry paste
  • yellow curry powder (enough to fill 1/2 the empty curry paste can)
  • 3-4 tbsp fish sauce
  • 3 tbsp canola oil, plus more if needed
  • 4-5 chicken thighs, skin on, bone in
  • 2 or 3 shallots, diced
  • 1 cup chicken stock
  • 1 can (14-oz) unsweetened coconut milk
  • 2-3 tbsp palm sugar
  • 1 lb chanterelles, torn into pieces
  • 1 package Chinese egg noodles
  • garnish: lime wedges, cilantro, chili sauce, pickled cabbage or mustard greens
  1. Add one can of Penang curry paste to a large mixing bowl. Fill half the empty can with yellow curry powder and add that to the bowl. Stir curries together with 3 or 4 tablespoons of fish sauce, or to taste. Add chicken thighs and slather with curry mixture. If preparing ahead, refrigerate a few hours to marinate, otherwise proceed to next step.
  2. In a wok or large pot, sauté marinated chicken thighs in oil over medium-low heat. This can be a delicate procedure; turn thighs with tongs, adding a little more oil if necessary, making sure the curry paste doesn’t burn on the bottom. Add diced shallots as thighs begin to brown and continue moving chicken pieces around until all are lightly browned.
  3. Add stock to deglaze, then coconut milk. Sweeten with palm sugar to taste and simmer until chicken is tender.
  4. Cook egg noodles according to package directions, drain, rinse with cold tap water, and set aside. Note: reserving some uncooked noodles to fry as an additional crunchy garnish is a nice touch and typical of Northern Thai preparations. Rehydrate the dried noodles in cold water for a few minutes, pat dry, and pan-fry in oil.
  5. Prepare remaining garnish ingredients.
  6. Add chanterelles to curry just before serving. If the mushrooms are fresh rather than previously sautéed and frozen, allow enough time to properly cook, several minutes.
  7. For each serving, add boiled noodles to a bowl, ladle curry and a chicken thigh on top, and garnish.

New in Paperback!

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I’M PLEASED TO announce that my book The Mushroom Hunters is now available in a new paperback edition.

Much has changed in the kingdom of fungi since the book was first published in the fall of 2013. This new edition updates some of the scientific advances, particularly in taxonomy.

But perhaps most importantly, the wider public has become increasingly aware of mushrooms and their place in the environment in the years since publication.

My hope is that a new generation of burgeoning mushroom enthusiasts can find their way into this mysterious and magical realm through this new edition.

Oso Refreshing: Osoberry Cocktail

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Osoberry Cocktail

THE OSOBERRY, aka Indian plum (Oemleria cerasiformis), is one of the first shrubs in the Pacific Northwest to leaf out and flower, heralding spring and warm days ahead. This makes it a welcome sight in lowland forests after a long winter.

Ranging from southwestern British Columbia to California, osoberry inhabits lower elevation mixed forests west of the Cascade Crest, where it grows to a maximum height of about twenty feet. Its small purple fruits are edible but mostly pit, with an astringency that could probably be made palatable with a food mill, sugar, and determination. I leave them for the wildlife.

The newly leafed-out foliage is another matter. Easily nabbed and redolent of cucumber or pickled melon rind, the bright green leaves call out to the mixologist. Experiment as you wish. This delicious drink was concocted with five or six young leaves, muddled in an ice shaker, along with the juice of half a lime, a splash of my elderflower liqueur, and good gin—a fine combination for an early spring happy hour.

Spicy Korean Stew

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WHILE HUNTING Agaricus mushrooms with Chad Hyatt on the Central Coast of California this winter—and getting a crash course in yellow stainers, red stainers, and the “lose your lunch bunch”—it occurred to me that a salty-sweet Korean stew would pair well with a meaty species in the almond-scented group of Agaricus such as A. fissuratus or A. albolutescens.

As it turned out, we only found red stainers like A. brunneofibrillosus (pictured), which ended up in a Spanish pork belly stew, but the thought lingered and, once back home, I decided to make the Korean stew with store-bought enoki mushrooms along with some candy cap syrup from my trip as a sub for maple syrup. A mycophagist could geek out in plenty of other mycelial directions with a flexible dish like this—or skip the fungi altogether if so-inclined.

3-4 lbs chicken thighs
1 tbsp canola oil
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
1 small yam, peeled & cubed
1/2 small butternut squash, peeled & cubed
1/2 yellow onion, sliced into half moons
1/2 red bell pepper, cut into thin slices
5 oz enoki, beech, or button mushrooms
4 green onions, cut into 2-inch pieces
6 oz (dried) glass noodles, pre-cooked

Sauce ingredients:
2-3 tbsp gochujiang
2-3 tbsp Korean red pepper flakes
1 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
4-5 cloves garlic
1 thumb ginger
1/2 yellow onion, cut up
1/3 cup stock or water
4 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp maple syrup (or candy cap syrup)
2 green onion
1/2 apple or pear
1/2 jalapeño
2 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp oyster sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
salt & pepper

1. In an enamel pot, lightly brown 3 to 4 pounds of chicken in 1 tbsp oil.

2. While chicken is browning, combine sauce ingredients blender.

3. Pour sauce into pot along with 1 1/2 cups chicken stock, bring to boil, turn down heat and braise covered 30-40 minutes.

4. Add cubed sweet potato and cook 10 minutes.

5. Add cubed butternut squash, sliced onion, sliced red bell pepper and cook another 10 minutes.

6. Add pre-cooked glass noodles and green onions, stir together, and cook a couple more minutes. Add more stock if necessary.

Serves 6 with rice.

Matsutake Ramen

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I DON’T PRETEND to be a ramen aficionado. That seems to be a full-time job these days. But I like ramen, and a home-made ramen rather than the packaged instant variety can still be a fairly quick meal. This miso-based version is goosed with the sublime meatiness and funky flavor of soy-glazed matsutake mushrooms. 

Unlike Sukiyaki Hotpot or Dobin Mushi, the purpose of the matsutake mushrooms in this dish is not to infuse the broth. Instead, the mushrooms are placed atop the other ingredients after being sautéed and are meant to be enjoyed for their meaty texture and singular flavor, which pairs very well with the rich, spicy soup. To be honest, I was bowled over by how perfectly the marriage of broth, mushroom, and noodle worked in this first attempt at a matsutake ramen. In the future I’ll try other styles of broth, but it’s hard to imagine anything better.

You can use any chili bean paste to spice up the broth, but I recommend an earthy Piixian douban from Sichuan Province (note, however, that Pixian douban is salty, so you likely won’t need to add additional salt). And while a decent store-bought variety of chicken stock is fine in a pinch, your own broth made from a leftover roast chicken carcass will always be better. 

1 or 2 matsutake buttons, sliced
soy sauce
1 quart chicken (or veg) stock
1 thumb ginger, peeled and finely diced
2 cloves garlic, finely diced
1 small shallot, finely diced
1/4 lb ground pork (or crumbled tofu)
1 tbsp chili bean paste
2 tbsp sesame oil
3-4 tbsp white miso paste
2 tbsp sake
1 tbsp sugar
salt and white pepper, to taste
10 oz fresh ramen noodles
2 green onions, sliced
2 eggs, soft boiled and halved
green vegetable (e.g., baby bok choy)
toasted sesame seeds

1. Make the soup. Over medium-low heat combine 1 tablespoon of sesame oil with diced ginger, garlic, and shallot. Cook, stirring, until fragrant, about a minute. Add ground pork and raise heat to medium. Sauté until meat is no longer pink. Add miso paste, chili bean paste, and sugar, careful not to scorch. Add sake and chicken broth. Season and cover. Reduce heat to a low simmer.

2. While soup broth is simmering, glaze sliced matsutake buttons. Sauté in a pan over medium heat in 1 tablespoon of sesame oil. After turning mushrooms once, add a splash of soy sauce (a tablespoon or two) and allow to reduce until the matsutake slices have a deep mahogany color. Turn again to fully coat with soy and remove.

3. Prepare ingredients in soup bowls. Boil ramen according to instructions and divide between bowls. Add baby bok choy (or other greens) to simmering soup pot and cook for a minute or two. Ladle broth into bowls along with greens. Top with glazed matsutake, soft-boiled eggs, and a garnish of green onion. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Hericium Crab Cakes

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HERICIUM IS A GENUS of fungi that includes edible favorites like the lion’s mane and bear’s head. Cooked hericium has a texture similar to crab meat as well as a hint of seafood taste. Faux crab cakes are a popular way to prepare this fungus for the table.

The main trick is to properly assess the water content of your hericium. If it’s dry and not waterlogged, you can tear it up into small pieces (like lump crab meat) and mix with the other ingredients as is. If, however, the fungus has a high water content (due to recent rain, etc.), you may need to gently sauté it first in a lightly greased non-stick pan to cook off some of that liquid before forming your patties. Typically you can judge the water content by squeezing a chunk of the fungus; if it readily sheds water like a wet sponge, definitely try to cook off some of this moisture first. A few days in the refrigerator will help dry it, too.

I made these hericium crab cakes with about a quarter of a bear’s head mushroom (Hericium abietis) that I found on a dead western hemlock in a Washington State old-growth forest. The cakes are served with sweet chili sauce, white rice, and Sichuan cucumber salad.

2 loose cups bear’s head fungus, torn into small pieces to imitate lump crab meat
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup onion, diced
1/4 cup red bell pepper, diced
1 heaping tbsp parsley (or cilantro), chopped
3 tbsp mayo
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/2 tsp Worcester sauce
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp Old Bay seasoning
1/4 cup panko or fine breadcrumbs
salt and pepper
butter

  1. Sauté onion and red pepper together in butter. Season with salt and pepper.
  2. In a medium to large bowl combine the sautéed onions and red bell pepper with parsley, mayo, mustard, Worcester sauce, lemon juice and seasoning. Next stir in the fungus and egg, just enough to thoroughly mix. Now slowly add panko or breadcrumbs until the mixture is just wet enough to be formed into patties that will hold together while cooking, about a 1/4 cup. Set aside mixture for several minutes.
  3. In a nonstick pan over medium heat, melt a pat of butter. Form patties and pan-fry until lightly browned on both sides. Serves 2

 

Creamy Polenta with Wild Mushrooms

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THE BLACK TRUMPET (Craterellus calicornucopioides) is one of my favorite wild mushrooms for the table. Like its cousins in the chanterelle family, it’s earthy with a touch of fruity sweetness. On the West Coast, most pickers look for them in the coastal hills of northern California and southern Oregon, where they hide among the leaf litter of forests dominated by Douglas fir, tanoak, and madrone (with a smattering of decayed redwood for good measure). But they can be found elsewhere…
 
One of the great pleasures of mushroom hunting is sleuthing out the many clues that lead to a full basket. The black trumpet is one of those varieties that requires putting on your detective cap and paying serious attention to the landscape. Cracking the case results in a righteous dinner.
 

Creamy Polenta with Wild Mushrooms
 
This recipe is adapted from a New York Times recipe by Sam Sifton, who rightly points out that soy sauce and butter make a heavenly combination, particularly in service to fungi, because of the massive umami factor. 
 
Many home cooks view polenta with trepidation. It doesn’t follow directions! Don’t be afraid. Polenta is easy and forgiving, even if temperamental—and a perfect vehicle for wild mushrooms. Yes, it rarely cooks the same way twice, varying by brand, weather, elevation, and seemingly by whim. Just add more liquid if necessary and adjust seasoning, cheese, and butter to taste.
 
This makes a side dish for two. I used a mixture of golden chanterelles and black trumpets.

For polenta:
 
1 cup water (plus more as it cooks)
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup polenta
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter
Parmesan cheese, grated (optional)
 
For mushrooms:
 
1/4 lb (or more) wild mushrooms, roughly cut into pieces
2 tbsp butter, divided
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp porcini powder*, rehydrated with 1/2 cup warm water
1 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp heavy cream
1 tsp olive oil
Salt and pepper
 
* You can pulverize a store-bought package of dried porcini into powder with a spice grinder. I make jars of the stuff from my #3 mature king boletes to use with rubs and in sauces, stews, and soups. No porcini? Substitute with chicken or vegetable stock.
 
1. Over medium-high heat, bring water and milk to simmer in a medium-sized sauce pan or pot. Slowly add polenta while whisking to prevent clumping. Season with salt and continue to whisk for a minute or two. Turn heat to low and cook for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more water as necessary to maintain creaminess.
 
2. Meanwhile, in a small pan sauté garlic and mushrooms in a tablespoon of butter over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Cook mushrooms until they release their water and then cook off liquid, allowing mushrooms to brown slightly; this might take several minutes. Season with salt and pepper.
 
3. Add 1/2 cup porcini stock to mushrooms. Reduce by half and turn heat to low. Add a splash each of soy sauce and cream and a drizzle of olive oil. Stir together and allow to thicken. Keep warm in pan over low heat while waiting for polenta to cook. If sauce becomes too thick, add another splash of water, cream, or stock. Just before plating, melt one more tablespoon of butter into mushroom sauce and stir.
 
4. When polenta is thoroughly cooked and creamy, add butter and cheese (and more liquid if necessary). Adjust seasoning. Serve in a bowl and spoon mushrooms and sauce on top.
 
Serves 2 as a side dish.
 

Stir-fried Oyster Mushrooms with Chicken

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I START LOOKING for oysters (Pleurotus sp.) in lowland forests of the Cascade foothills a few days after the first warm rains of spring. Some years I find them as early as late February though April is more typical. They’ll keep fruiting throughout the spring and sometimes well into summer if regular rain continues, and then again in the fall. 

The saprophytic oyster mushrooms in the Northwest will usually be found in association with dead red alder or cottonwood. They look like clam shells growing off the sides of standing snags or fallen trees. Fresh specimens are creamy white, with hues of pink or tan. They have gills and stems that are off-center.

While you can buy farmed oysters at the market, I find the wild variety to be more flavorful, and I use them in all kinds of dishes from around the world, east and west. My go-to recipe of recent years has been a quick, delicate Chinese stir-fry that will appeal to those who prefer a less spicy Cantonese style, which allows the oysters to really shine. If you’re vegetarian, skip the chicken or swap in tofu.

3 tbsp peanut oil
3/4 lb oyster mushrooms, cut into half-dollar pieces
3/4 lb chicken breast, thinly sliced into a similar size as mushrooms
4 green onions, cut into 2-inch pieces
3 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 large thumb-sized piece of ginger, thinly sliced
salt and white pepper, to taste

Marinade

1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Chinese cooking wine (Shaoxing)
1 tsp potato starch

Sauce

3 tbsp chicken stock
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp potato starch

1. Combine sliced chicken in a bowl with marinade ingredients, stir, and set aside. Whisk together sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

2. In a wok over medium heat, sauté oyster mushrooms in 1 tbsp oil, stirring occasionally. Remove to a bowl when slightly browned.

3. Heat 2 tbsp oil in wok over high heat and add marinated chicken. When the chicken is partly cooked but still pinkish, add garlic, ginger, and green onion. Cook together, stirring, for 30 seconds until aromatic before returning oyster mushrooms to wok. Continue to cook together another minute or so until chicken is barely cooked through.

4. Pour in sauce, stir to coat, and reduce heat. Season to taste and serve immediately with rice.

Serves 2

Huckleberry Snow Cone

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WHAT DO YOU DO when it snows in Seattle? Make a Huckleberry Snow Cone! 

While I was out skiing around the neighborhood this morning, my daughter was busy cooking down a cup of frozen huckleberries with water and sugar, then blending it in the Vitamix. After a quick straining she had a deep red, sweet and syrupy liquid to pour over packed snowballs—a perfect treat for a no-school Snow Day.

Matsutake Dobin Mushi

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LAST YEAR MY friend Taichi Kitamura, chef/owner of Sushi Kappo Tamura in Seattle, gave me a set of two dobin mushi teapots he’d recently picked up in Japan, where “dobin” means teapot and “mushi” is steamed. 

These ceramic teapots are used to serve Matsutake Dobin Mushi, a favorite seasonal dish in Japan that relies on thinly sliced matsutake mushrooms to flavor a subtle broth as they steam in the pot. Other ingredients such as small pieces of chicken, fish, or shrimp along with a few thin slices of mild greens (e.g., yu choy, baby bok choy, or spinach) are also added. The teapot is served with a small upside-down cup fitted to the lid, with half a yuzu on top. The steaming broth is then poured into the cup with a squeeze of the citrus and sipped like tea, while the ingredients in the teapot are eaten with chopsticks. It’s a ritualistic meal that evokes memories of brisk walks in the autumn woods as the leaves turn colors and fall to the ground.

You may see sources online suggesting the substitution of matsutake with shiitake, oyster, or cremini mushrooms. Certainly you can do that—but you won’t be experiencing the ethereal and aromatic treat that only matsutke can provide and which the Japanese call “autumn aroma.” As for the broth, think umami. I asked Taichi for some tips. He makes a kombu dashi and adds manila clams and black cod bones. Shrimp shells work, too. Avoid aromatics such as onion, carrot, and celery, he advised, because they will over-power the mushroom. Season the broth with sake, soy sauce, and sea salt. Lastly, it’s important to allow the matsutake slices to steep in the broth and impart their hints of cinnamon, spice, and fungus. While Taichi recommends a traditional preparation of warming the teapots with all their ingredients in a bamboo steamer, it’s okay to gently warm the broth and ingredients over a low flame in a regular pot.

Matsutake mushrooms are pungent, with meaty texture—a little goes a long way. If you’re buying matsutake in the market you’ll be spending a frightening amount per pound (they were $70/lb at my local Japanese grocer the other day), but luckily you don’t need a lot, so just get a small button to serve two. And if you can forage them yourself in the forest, all the better. Mine came from a patch not far from Seattle, where I found several pounds of prime buttons pushing up through the moss beneath a Douglas fir. At the time I was hunting chanterelles, but I’ll remember this surprise of a spot and return to it next year.

Matsutake Dobin Mushi

2 cups kombu dashi (see step 1 below)
1 kombu dashi packet or 20 grams kombu (dried kelp)
4 manila clams
4 shrimp, peeled (reserve shells)
1 tbsp sake
1/2 tsp soy
1/4 tsp salt
1 small to medium matsutake button, thinly sliced
6 bite-sized, thin-sliced pieces chicken breast (or white fish fillet such as cod, rockfish, halibut)
2 baby bok choy (or other mild green), halved
1 yuzu, halved (or 2 lime wedges)

1. Make kombu dashi. Either use a kombu dashi packet (looks like a teabag, prepare according to instructions) or soak 20 grams kombu in a pot with 4 1/2 cups cold water for several hours or overnight; simmer, don’t boil, ten minutes before removing kombu with tongs. Refrigerate dashi or continue to next step.

2. Heat 2 cups of kombu dashi in a pot with clams and shrimp shells. When the clams have opened, remove all shells. Season broth with sake, soy sauce, and sea salt. Simmer until alcohol has cooked off.

3. Divide equal portions of sliced matsutake, greens, shrimp, and chicken into dobin mushi pots, then add hot broth. Replace lids and heat teapots in a bamboo steamer over a kettle of boiling water for several minutes. (You can also steam in a wok with a rack and lid.) This gentle steaming allows the matsutake to fully infuse the broth while the shrimp, chicken, and greens poach.

4. Serve Dobin Mushi with a half of yuzu or lime wedge placed on top of each inverted cup. After removing the teapot lid, inhale the autumn aroma. Winter is on its way.

Serves 2