Category Archives: Fungi

Truffling with Jack

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As I lay me down here at home, cold-turkey off the meds, there’s not much to report in the way of foraging. Luckily I have my wild food stash and a few things to mention that didn’t get mentioned in the fall.

A few months ago while in Portland for some book events I made a side-trip an hour southwest to the Willamette Valley in search of a coveted wild edible to bring back home. It’s the sort of edible that inspires otherwise circumspect men to spend stupid sums of money and otherwise intelligent women to sleep with stupid men. At least in Europe that’s the case, where the truffle has enjoyed a long, colorful history as a pricey luxury item and sought-after aphrodisiac.

Truffles are subterranean fungi, many of which emit pungent scents to attract the animals that will dig them up, eat them, and subsequently spread their reproductive spores. Whether or not these aromas are ever scientifically proven to heighten arousal we can be sure that truffles will continue to fetch top dollar for their culinary uses. The white “Alba” truffles of Italy and black “Perigord” truffles of France have been the choice of royalty for centuries. Here in North America, specifically in the low-elevation Douglas-fir forests of the Pacific Northwest, we have our own edible truffles that don’t require a fancy coat-of-arms or family escutcheon to possess. While not as renowned as their European counterparts, American truffles can stir the same primal passions when used correctly.

And there’s the rub. The fact is, most American diners—most American chefs, one could argue—don’t know what a good truffle tastes like, or worse (in the case of the chefs), they aren’t scrupulous enough to know when to not serve the expensive fungus mocking them in the walk-in. In this country unripe truffles are routinely bought and sold and then passed up the food-chain until they reach restaurant patrons who scratch their heads wondering what all the fuss is about. I’ve been served a very unspectacular Perigord black truffle by one of Seattle’s finest restaurants, with the flourish of a waiter brandishing his mandoline at table. The theatric gesture didn’t change the fact that the truffle wasn’t ripe.

American truffles seem to suffer even more from ill-use, perhaps because they’re cheaper and easier to obtain. A small group of local truffle boosters has been trying to change this, but until the public is more educated—from commercial forager to diner—our home-grown truffles will continue to be viewed as vastly inferior to their European cousins. Which is too bad, because good, ripe truffles from both continents can elevate a meal from excellent to sublime.

As I drove southwest from Portland, I thought about my last meal of truffles. It had been just a few days earlier in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, where a friend took me to his favorite trattoria. We ordered plates of linguini with cream sauce. The waiter appeared with a scale and a large white Alba truffle, which he weighed first, then shaved onto our pasta, then weighed again. Like cocaine, truffles are priced by the gram. Fortunately this truffle that had traveled thousands of miles was in top form and our meal, so simple in appearance, was superb. The smell of the truffles rose up in the steam of the dish. Each bite seemed to offer the possibility of a secret revealed. We took in these ineffable pleasures and washed them down with woodsy Piedmontese Barbera…

Autumn colors in neat geometric patterns across the Dundee Hills snapped me out of my reverie. I wasn’t in Italy, nor San Francisco. Here in the Willamette Valley the crush of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay had finished and the leaves were turning pretty shades of yellow and orange. In the town of Dayton I pulled into the historic Joel Palmer House to meet my guide.

Jack Czarnecki, former owner of the Joel Palmer House (his son is now the chef-owner), is about the closest thing this country has to a truffle expert, and he’s using his expertise to produce truffle oil. Like the proverbial lightning in a bottle, truffle oil is a way to capture the fleeting flavors of truffles and use them year-round; unlike lightning in a bottle, it can really be done. But it should be noted that Jack’s all-natural truffle oils are a far cry from the chemical concoctions devised in scientific labs by most of the other so-called truffle oil manufacturers.

A few words about truffle oil. As wild foods, in particular fungi, continue to land on plates served by high-end restaurants across the land, there’s been a commensurate increase in the use of truffle oil. Truffle oil is the sort of fancy ingredient that can spruce up a menu and lend extra gravitas to an establishment looking for culinary plaudits. Which would you pay more for? Wild Mushroom Ravioli or Ravioli of Porcini and Chevre drizzled with Truffle Oil… But what is truffle oil? According to Daniel Patterson in his now-infamous New York Times rant, most truffle oils are a fraud—molecular creations that don’t actually have a shred of truffle in their recipes.

You see, the truffle’s complex aroma has been sequenced out by chemists so that it’s now just a series of numbers and letters, an equation. Even the French and Italian oils are guilty of the deception, and though some will include shavings or pieces of truffle in the bottom of the bottle for an implied authenticity, the actual flavor has been created in a test tube.

Jack hasn’t taken the short cut. His truffle oils are the real deal. And for this reason, he needs to forage an enormous quantity of truffles each season. I was only too glad to help. With his friend Tony joining us, we set out for the truffle ballpark—in this case, a managed stand of young Douglas firs on private property where Jack has worked out a barter arrangement that is typical between truffle hunters and landowners. To the untrained eye the forest looked like a rather uninviting monocrop. To the experienced truffler, it looked like the strike zone: young, single-aged conifers grew in rows for easy walking and a thick carpet of duff covered the ground underfoot. Using garden rakes, we gently raked back the layer of duff to expose little white tubers up to the size of golf-balls: Oregon winter white truffles, Tuber oregonense.

It was still a couple weeks early and most of the truffles didn’t yet have their typically pungent smell. We collected them just the same. Jack explained that it was possible to ripen the truffles if done with patience and an understanding of the truffle’s life-cycle.

I came home with a couple pounds of white truffles. Following Jack’s instructions, I washed the dirt off each truffle with a quick blast of tap water and then used a toothbrush to clean the exterior. This took some time. Then I swaddled the truffles in paper towels, layering them in Tupperware and sealing the lid before popping into the fridge. The idea is to keep them cool and dry so they can ripen just as they would in the ground. The truffles sweat so you need to change the damp towels every couple days.

Most of a truffle’s flavor and aroma comes in the form of gases emitted by the truffle which can then be absorbed in fats. This is why you never cook truffles at high temperature; the fragile gases get cooked out. The best way to serve truffles is to shave them thinly over hot food on the plate, not in the pan, and allow the flavors to soak in. Scrambled eggs, melted butter, and cream sauces are the perfect vehicles.

Unfortunately most of my individual truffles never ripened as much as they would have in the ground. My ripest specimens got thinly sliced into dishes such as homemade Tagliatelle with Alfredo Sauce to which they added a noticeable hint of truffle, though not as much as I would have preferred. But I had another card up my sleeve: I made a couple pounds of truffled butter, a better choice for my slow-ripening truffles. I sealed sticks of organic sweet cream butter into Tupperware with a few ounces of truffles per stick and left them in the fridge for a few weeks. By the end the truffles were decomposing, but over the course of those weeks they emitted enough of their fabled gases to flavor the butter. (Oh, and by the way, if you ever see truffled butter that’s shot through with pieces of ground-up truffle, know that this is either a misconception on the maker’s part or a gimmick. It’s all about the gases.) The truffled butter is wonderful melted over pasta or simply spread on toast.

This was my first experience digging white truffles. In general I’d say they’re stronger than black truffles. Black truffles have a distinctly different flavor (fruitier, less garlicky) and are supposedly harder to find, though I’ve had some luck foraging them in recent years. Both whites and blacks can make a special accompaniment to a meal when properly ripe, and whether or not our local truffles deserve comparison with European varieties is besides the point. Truffles are a treat wherever they are handled with skill.

Farro with Porcini, Chanterelles & Mascarpone

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FARRO IS AN ancient form of hulled wheat that’s low-yielding and similar to barley or wheat-berries in texture. Despite being in vogue of late, farro is actually among the oldest of agricultural products. It was first domesticated nearly 10,000 years ago in the Near East, most likely in present-day Turkey. Today it is eaten more in Itlay than anywhere else.

This is a good way to show off this ancient grain. The farro is combined with sauteed wild mushrooms—chanterelles here—and a healthy dollop of mascarpone to give it a creamy unctuousness. It takes a while to cook but it’s forgiving. Add more water and cooking time if you prefer a softer, more yielding bite. You can also soak the grain overnight.

1 cup farro
3 cups warm water
1-2 oz dried porcini, pulverized (optional)
4 oz mascarpone
1/2 lb chanterelles, chopped
2 tbsp butter
1 clove garlic, minced
salt & pepper

1. Reconstitute the porcini in 3 cups of warm water. Set aside for 10 minutes.
2. Pour porcini water in pot, salt the water, and bring to boil. Add farro, lower heat to simmer and cook until water is gone, about 40 minutes. Farro should be al dente yet tender. You can add more or less water and cook until desired softness. There’s a lot of leeway and personal preference with farro.
3. Saute chanterelles for several minutes in butter in a large skillet, or in batches. Avoid slimy chanterelles by not crowding. You want the mushrooms to be lightly browned and firm.
4. Stir mascarpone into farro, then stir in most of chanterelles, reserving some as garnish. Season and garnish with chopped chives or parsley.

We served the farro with sauteed kale from the garden and sliced Steak au Poivre. The steak was organic and grass-fed, with a single 8-ounce New York strip plenty enough to feed two of us along with the other sides. A bottle of cabernet completed the meal.

Going Rogue

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Every year in mid-November I help my friend Bradley close up his cabin near the Rogue River in southwestern Oregon. The Rogue is one of only a handful of coastal rivers that can boast a significant roadless section, in this case a 30-plus mile stretch of river that flows through the Congressionally designated Wild & Scenic lower canyon and the adjacent Rogue River Wilderness. It’s rugged country filled with bears, cougars, hermits, and goldpanners. After the chores are attended to, we hike the trails, fish for steelhead, hunt mushrooms, and whump up big meals on the wood stove.

This annual trip is pretty much the capper on my year of wild food foraging.

Long Live the Queen

I don’t get many opportunities to pick queen boletes (Boletus regineus). They’re most often found in mixed woodlands of the coastal mountains to the south of me, in Northern California and Southern Oregon, particularly the lower elevations where tanoak thrives and puts the hurt on anyone hoping to bushwhack around those river valleys below snowline. I’ve never found them in Washington, probably because I rarely encounter tanoak here.

Besides habitat, the best way to distinguish the king and queen in the field is cap color (see photo at right). Queen boletes will have darker caps at maturation, sometimes a rich mahogany brown, and the younger specimens, while often lacking dark caps at this stage, will frequently have a whitish bloom across the cap that can be rubbed off with your finger. They’re generally smaller than kings too.

One of the cool things about the queen is that it fruits later than the king, at least where I pick it, and often in troops, so you can still get fresh porcini even after the kings have gone to dirt. Our queen is not the same species as the one found in the Old World. That’s Boletus aereus, which by all accounts rivals Boletus edulis, the king, for its porcini flavor and aroma. Boletus regineus is similar with its dark brown cap but tastes milder. On the plus side, the flesh is white and firm like the king yet often lacks the insect infestations of its more heralded partner in royalty.

We ate the queen with steak one night and sauteed it up with black trumpets another night to serve over crackers.

Blow Your Horn

Speaking of black trumpets (Craterellus cornucopioides), this is another species I only see in the Rogue. We never find large quantities, just enough to savor that wonderful woodsy, almost smoky flavor. Northern California is the strike zone for the trumpet. I’ve heard professional foragers reminisce about enormous patches in the hills just inland from the Pacific.

Supposedly there are a few patches of well-guarded trumpets in Washington but I’ve never found them. Instead I look to the Rogue each year to satisfy my craving. Sometimes we get just a taste that must last us through the year.

“They’re not big, but they don’t know it.”

The owner of the Silver Sedge Fly Shop told me that years ago when I stopped in to buy some fly-tying materials. He was talking about immature steelhead that probe the lower Rogue River before dropping back into the salt to finish their growth. Known as “half-pounders” to locals, these torpedo-shaped flashes of silver average 12 to 15 inches yet attack flies with the hellbent abandon of much larger fish and they’re a hoot on light fly gear.

As in previous years, I took a single hatchery half-pounder home to share with the family so they could get a taste of the Rogue. The other fish, most of them wild, were released back into the drink.

You betcha.

Sichuan Pickled Sparassis

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CAULIFLOWER MUSHROOMS (Sparassis sp.) are deliciously nutty and they can be huge, with a firm texture that doesn’t soften with cooking like so many other species. Even after braising in a stew for an hour they remain al dente, which is a good way to describe the texture since this mushroom resembles nothing so much as a bowl full of cooked egg noodles.

Those wavy protrusions and deep clefts are expert at trapping duff and forest debris, making the cauliflower one of the more difficult mushrooms to clean. Worms like them too. The trick, as with so many tasty mushrooms, is to find them before the insects do—or else cut away the infestations as best as possible.

Sichuan peppercorns are the key ingredient. Not really pepper, the spice is actually the husk of a type of berry widespread through Asia. When consumed, it gives the mouth and lips a numb tingling feeling that works well with other hot spices commonly found in Sichuan foods.

1 lb cauliflower mushroom, boiled for a few minutes and cut into pieces
1 lb Napa cabbage, pulled apart and cut into 2-inch squares
1/2 lb diakon radish, sliced into 1/4-inch thick half-moons or matchsticks
2 carrots, sliced on an angle into 1/4-inch thick ovals
6-8 hot peppers cut in half and de-seeded
1/4 cup sliced ginger
2 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns
2 tbsp vodka
6-8 cups water, boiled and cooled
3 tbsp salt

Mix the brine and Szechuan peppercorns in a large tupperware or other non-reactive container. Stir in vodka; this is strictly for sanitary reasons. Add vegetables, fungi, and spices, making sure they are immersed completely in the brine. Cover and store at room temperature for 3-5 days. After the initial pickling, the contents can be refrigerated for 2 weeks.

X-Country Double Lobster Risotto

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THAT’S RIGHT, two kinds of lobsters from two different coasts, East meets West: A Maine lobster of the surf variety and a Washington lobster of the turf variety, combined in a Reece’s style mash-up for grown-up palettes. I gotta tell you, folks, this is a serious keeper, and I’m scratching my head wondering why I’ve never seen such a beast on a menu before because it makes so much sense.

Lobster mushrooms are named for their bright orange exterior that resembles the cooked crustacean—the colorful result of one fungus parasitizing another, with the hapless—and unpalatable—Russula brevipes being attacked and colonized by Hypomyces lactifluorum, resulting, incredibly, in a mushroom that is edible and choice.

The more I’ve cooked with lobsters over the last few years, the more I’ve begun to appreciate their versatility. They make a wonderful traditional duxelles sauce, and there’s no denying they have a hint of seafood taste that works especially well in certain dishes of the sea. Plus, their texture when cooked is firm yet soft and smooth. You could almost use them in a traditional Lobster Risotto and skip the crustacean altogether. But when used together, it’s like doubling your money.

2 Maine lobsters (each about 1 1/4 lbs)*
4 tbsp butter
1/2 lb lobster mushrooms, diced
1 large shallot, diced
1 celery rib, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/4 cup sherry
2 cups Arborio rice
8 cups stock**
1/4 cup grated Parmesan
2 tbsp chopped parsley and/or chives

* We used a single 1 1/2 lb lobster, which was enough for dinner for two. The leftovers, however, were mostly bereft of lobster.

** You can use chicken stock, fish stock, or make your own stock using the lobster shell(s), which is what we did. After cooking, remove lobster to cold water. Add to pot 1 cut up onion, 2 chopped carrots, 2 chopped celery ribs, and a bay leaf. Toss the lobster shells back into the pot as you finish cleaning them of their meat. Simmer, allowing stock to reduce, until ready to use, then strain.

1. Saute shallots, garlic, celery, and mushrooms in butter over medium-high heat. When the shallots are translucent, pour in the sherry and continue cooking until most of the alcohol has evaporated, then add the rice and stir to coat thoroughly, cooking another couple minutes.

2. Begin adding ladlefuls of warm stock in your preferred risotto style. I like this risotto creamy but not overly wet. Continue until the rice is cooked yet still al dente.

3. Meanwhile, chop up lobster meat to desired size, reserving large hunks of claw meat as garnish. When risotto is done, remove from heat and mix in Parmesan and lobster pieces. Sprinkle plated risotto with chopped herbs.

Serves 4. Pair with a medium to full-bodied white that isn’t too oaky. Our local shop recommended an Argiolas Vermentino di Sardegna Costamolino 2008, which the New York Times called their favorite as well as “Best Value” in a recent roundup of Italian vermentinos.

Chanties Chanties Everywhere

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The chanterelle: Despite its romantic twirl off the tongue, you’d think it was practically domesticated—an off-the-shelf French floozy Halloween costume. Is there an A-list wild mushroom that gets less respect, after all, than the chanty? Like an over-exposed model, it has the faint whiff of “been there done that.” Well, I for one wouldn’t kick a golden chanterelle out of bed for eating Cheez-Its!

Their fruity nose of apricots is unique in the fungal kingdom, and that fruitiness carries over into taste. Though earthy like other wild mushrooms, the chanterelle’s flavor is reminiscent of orchards and vineyards and other more civilized habitats. In my neck of the woods they’re without a doubt the most common of the wild mushrooms, gracing even the shelves of the local Safeway.

But don’t be fooled. Though common, chanterelles are not always an easy find, and their singular flavor and aroma can transform many a dish from pedestrian to sublime, in particular any dish with bacon in it. Something about the union of fruity chanterelle with the essence of pig is a marriage made in culinary heaven.

How do you find chanterelles, you ask? I can’t speak for other parts of the country, but in the Pacific Northwest young stands of Douglas fir are your best bet. This means a trip to logging country, where you’ll pass miles of unsightly clearcuts before finding that perfect stand of 10 to 40-year-old tree farm Doug-firs where chanties thrive. This is not my favorite sort of mushroom hunting. The forest is dense, damp, and dark—and usually a boring monoculture. But if you can manage to find a patch of woods that hasn’t been visited by a commercial forager you’ll find the green moss carpeted with golden fungal goblets. These are the classic Pacific golden chanterelles, Cantharellus formosus. There are other varieties.

A strikingly hued species associated with spruce—Sitka on the coast and Engelmann in the inland West—goes by the name Cantharellus roseocanus. I find these chanterelles, known to commercial pickers as “peach chants” or “fluorescent chants,” in the high huckleberry meadows of the Cascades, where they hug the ground in a most unchanterelle-like demureness, their dullish yellow caps with a surprisingly flat topography peeking out of the duff. But slice one off at the ankles and turn it over and you’ll see the most blazing hue of neon orange underneath the cap.

And let’s not forget the humble white chanterelle (Cantharellus subalbidus), which is often less expensive at the market than its golden cousin yet is my favorite for its meatiness and strong flavor. White chanties hide beneath the duff, often requiring an eagle eye and careful excavation. The result is a chanterelle that is dirtier than its golden counterparts but worth the effort to root out and clean up.

Fig & Chanterelle Crostini

For this post I tried to stay away from heavy cream, an effort of Dr. Strangelove proportions. The photo at top is my favorite new canape, a simple dollop of chopped chanterelles sauteed with shallots and fresh sage in butter topped with a thin slice of fig and a sprinkle of parsley. Admittedly, I wasn’t too keen on the fig when a few of us first concocted this simple crostini; I thought the addition of fresh fig would take the fruitiness factor too far, but in fact it merely drives home the fact that chanterelles are a woodsy treat.

Chanties offer endless possibilities for brightening a meal with fall color and the tastes and smells of the harvest season. To borrow from Bull Durham, when you speak of the chanterelle, speak well.

Pickled Porcini

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IF YOU WANT TO pick mountain porcini in the Cascades, you best keep your ear to the wall. No one casually gives up their patches. It’s hard enough to predict where and when the buggers will fruit as it is.

A couple weeks ago while picking huckleberries I got a tip from some hikers that a lot of mushrooms were fruiting to the south. The next day made an educated guess about where to go. Mountain porcini like high elevations, and they’re picky about tree composition. True firs and spruce are the ticket. After a three-mile hike I started to see them—first some blown-out flags in the sunny areas and then fetching number one buttons emerging out of the duff in more shaded spots.

When picking porcini, always make sure to field dress them right away. I trim the end to check for worm holes, then cut the mushroom in half. Often a pristine looking bolete will show signs of bugs once you slice it open, but the infestations will just as often be local to a small area of the cap or stem that can be trimmed away. Whatever you do, don’t simply put a porcino in your basket to trim later at home. I’ve learned the hard way that a basketful of beautiful buttons can be a worm-ridden mess by the time you get home if you don’t deal with the bugs immediately.

By the end of the day I had nearly ten pounds of mostly perfect porcini buttons (having thrown away twice that amount as too far gone). What a dilemma! I had more porcini than I could use. Some I cooked, some I gave away, and the rest got pickled.

Pickled Porcini

My friend Cora, who stars in the morel hunting chapter of Fat of the Land the book, passed this recipe along to me from his father’s cousin, who lives in Cortemiglia, Italy. She gathers twenty to fifty pounds of porcini annually, so putting up is a must. 

1 pound fresh porcini buttons, halved or quartered
1 cup white vinegar
1 cup water
salt
olive oil
2 lemon peels per jar
2 dried red chili peppers per jar
1/2 tsp peppercorns per jar
(optional) other fresh herbs and spices such as thyme or oregano

1. Clean and cut up porcini buttons, then spread on a baking sheet. Cover generously with salt and set aside for at least an hour, until the mushrooms have shed much of their water. Drain and lightly rinse under tap in a colander.

2. Bring vinegar and water to boil. There should be enough liquid to cover mushrooms. Increase amounts for larger batches, keeping the ratio of vinegar to water at 1:1. Simmer porcini for 2 – 3 minutes. Drain on paper towels and set aside to dry for a few hours.

3. Pack sterilized jars with porcini, lemon peels, chili peppers, and peppercorns, then fill with olive oil (try both extra virgin and light olive oils to determine taste preference). Keep refrigerated.

Wild Surf ‘n’ Turf: Kung Pao Geoduck

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AFTER MAKING ceviche with the neck meat of a hard-won geoduck, I was left with a big hunk o’ body meat. What to do? Stir-fry seemed like the right approach.

Here’s a little secret: Anyone can cook Kung Pao at home, no problem. Just stock up on a few key items at your local Asian market, such as Chinese cooking wine (Shaoxing), rice vinegar, and dried red chilies. Other ingredients—soy sauce, sesame oil, corn starch—you probably have already. Though not traditional, I added wild chicken-of-the-woods mushrooms (Laetiporus conifericola), which are all over the Cascade forests right now, and snap peas.

Kung Pao Geoduck with Wild Mushrooms

1/2 lb geoduck, thinly sliced
1/2 lb chicken of the woods (or shitake)
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp sesame oil
2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine (Shaoxing)
2 tbsp corn starch dissolved in 2 tbsp water
1 tsp rice vinegar
2 tsp brown sugar
2 handfuls cocktail peanuts
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 thumb ginger, cut into slivers
8-10 dried chile peppers, halved and de-seeded
2 handfuls snap peas
2-3 green onions, chopped
1 tbsp peanut oil

1. For the marinade, combine into a bowl 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tbsp sesame oil, 1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine, and 1 tbsp of corn starch dissolved in 1 tbsp water. Immerse sliced geoduck and refrigerate 30 minutes.

2. For the sauce, combine into small bowl 1 tbsp soy sauce (note: use dark soy, if you have it), 1 tbsp sesame oil, 1 tbsp Chinese cooking wine, 1 tsp rice vinegar, 2 tsp brown sugar, and 1 tbsp corn starch dissolved in 1 tbsp water. 

3. Heat peanut oil in wok or large skillet on medium-high until nearly smoking. Add mushrooms and cook a few minutes. Stir in dried chilies and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in garlic, ginger, and half the green onion and cook another 30 seconds before adding geoduck with marinade. Cook together a minute or two, stirring. Add snap peas, sauce, and peanuts and cook another minute, all the while stirring.

4. Ladle over rice and garnish with remaining green onion. Now say a prayer for your local take-out joint, which might have less of your business in the future.

Serves 2.

Wild Mushroom Stuffed Brook Trout

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FISHING IS ALWAYS on the menu when we visit relatives in Colorado. Usually we pan-fry our trout, but with a haul of wild mushrooms gathered on a hike in the Gore Range the previous day, including oyster mushrooms and aspen boletes (known to locals as orange-caps), we decided a stuffed baked trout was the way to go.

A word about aspen boletes (Leccinum insigne): Most books and web sites list this species as edible. Coloradans regularly eat this common variety of porcini. However, the Colorado Mycological Society recommends caution. Every year the Rocky Mountain Poison Center receives complaints of gastro-intestinal distress following the ingestion of orange-caps, with some cases requiring hospitalization. In the Northwest there are similar complaints that derive from the consumption of Leccinum aurantiacum. I’ve talked to a mycologist who believes that a small percentage of the population at large—maybe just a few percent—is allergic to the genus Leccinum in general. Most people seem to eat these mushrooms without difficulty, and indeed, immigrants from mushroom-hunting cultures (e.g., Eastern Europeans) eat them with abandon. As with any new species of edible wild mushroom, it’s recommended that you nibble on just a little bit (cooked of course) to make sure you’re not allergic.

For this recipe it’s best to de-bone the trout, Here’s a helpful YouTube video.

2 pan-sized trouts, butterflied
2 pieces bacon
1/4 cup onion, diced
1/2 cup mushrooms, chopped
1 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 heaping tbsp parsley, chopped
1 slice bread, toasted and crumbled
lemon for juice and garnish
salt and pepper to taste

Fry the bacon and remove from pan when crispy. Crumble bacon into a bowl. Saute onion in bacon fat a couple minutes over medium heat, then add mushrooms and cook for another four or five minutes, making sure mushrooms expel their moisture. Add thyme and cook for one more minute. Spoon onion-mushroom mixture into bowl with bacon and add bread crumbs. Mix together. Squeeze lemon juice over butterflied trouts and season with salt and pepper. Spread half the stuffing onto lower half of one trout; repeat with other trout. Fold over each trout like a sandwich and secure with toothpicks. Place on greased foil in a broiling pan and bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes.

Fettucini with Porcini, Prosciutto & Tomato Cream Sauce

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YOU’LL WANT a good bottle of red wine for this one.

9 oz fresh fettucini
1 lb porcini, roughly cut
3 oz prosciutto, torn into pieces
2 plum tomatoes, cored and diced
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large shallot, diced
2 tbsp olive oil
1 splash vermouth
4 oz heavy cream
fresh parsley, chopped, for garnish
parmesan cheese for shaving over top
salt and pepper

1. Heat 1 tbsp olive oil in a large skillet over medium flame and add prosciutto, cooking for a minute or two, turning with tongs, careful not to burn.

2. Add shallot, garlic, and porcini, sautéing and stirring for another couple minutes. De-glaze with a splash of vermouth, then add tomatoes. Cook over medium heat for several minutes.

3. Add pasta to boiling water. Meanwhile lower heat to medium-low and stir in heavy cream. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

4. Plate fettucini, ladle over sauce, and garnish with thin shavings of parmesan and a few pinches of parsley. Hook up red wine IV drip. Serves 2 gluttons. Keep pillows nearby.