Category Archives: Fungi

Coral Mushroom Tempura

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THEY LOOK LIKE something from the deep, or even outer space. Coral mushrooms are a family (Clavariaceae) of multi-colored fungi that resemble the sort of undersea coral you might find while snorkeling in warm equatorial waters. There are many species across North America, and they can grow quite large.

I’ve been reluctant to post about coral mushrooms for a couple reasons. First, they’re difficult to identify to the species level. And second, as edibles, they have a mixed track record. Some sources suggest that there are no deadly poisonous corals; others say that some corals can cause gastrointestinal distress and that even the choice varieties can have a laxative effect. One species, Ramaria formosa, also known as the beautiful clavaria for its yellow and pink coloration, is thought to be mildly poisonous.
 
Careful foragers can rely on a few rules of thumb when gathering coral: avoid species with a gelatinous base; that bruise brown when handling; that taste bitter.

In my region the popular edible varieties tend to be spring mushrooms, in particular the pink-tipped coral Ramaria botrytis. Another is the yellow coral, both Ramaria rasilispora and Ramaria magnipes.

These are large, meaty mushrooms with a stout, fleshy base (especially R. magnipes, which is also called bigfoot). Both yellow and pink corals begin to emerge after morels and in advance of the spring porcini flush in the Pacific Northwest, and given good conditions they’ll continue to fruit throughout the summer and into fall in some locales. Fortunately, these are the dominant species where I pick spring porcini, and I’ll find the mushrooms cohabiting, but harvesters should learn the particulars of their own patches.

Look for corals that have just emerged from the duff and leaf litter. As they grow, the tips elongate and continue to trap all manner of forest debris in their clutches, making them a chore to clean. I look for tightly clustered corals that resemble cauliflower more than weird sea creatures.

I picked some corals the other day while scouting spring porcini. When I got them home I decided to try to keep their cool looking profiles intact by slicing up for tempura. The porcini went into the mix as well, along with other assorted veggies and shrimp. Use your favorite tempura recipe; I like this one.

Lamb Ragu with Morels & Fava Beans

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HELLO SPRINGTIME! This pasta brings together signature ingredients of the season: morels, fava beans, and an inexpensive cut of lamb, such as shoulder or neck. 

1 lb orecchiette
3 tbsp olive oil
1 lb lamb shoulder, cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1 medium onion, diced
1 large carrot, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 cup white wine
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 cups or more, chicken stock
fresh herbs, chopped (oregano, thyme, rosemary)
1 lb fresh morels, halved
1 lb fava beans, shelled
butter
salt and pepper
parmesan cheese at table

1. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium heat in a skillet. Brown lamb thoroughly. Remove lamb.

2. In the same pan, sweat onion, carrot, and celery for several minutes until soft. Add garlic and another tablespoon of olive oil if necessary. Cook together for a minute. De-glaze with white wine. Stir in tomato paste and fresh herbs.

3. Add 1 cup of chicken stock, return browned lamb to pan, and simmer. Add another cup of stock when the first cup has mostly reduced and continue to simmer. Allow to reduce again, at least by half. Season with salt and pepper.

4. Bring pot of salted water to boil. Add pasta.

5. Saute morels in butter for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add fava beans and cook together another couple minutes, until favas are tender but not too soft. Season.

6. Spoon ragu over pasta and top with morels and lava beans. Serve with parmesan cheese.

Celery Root Soup with Shaved White Truffles

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CELERY ROOT IS NOT much for the eyes. It looks a little like some intergalactic critter from the cantina scene in Star Wars. But once you slice off the exterior you’re left with a pearly white block of goodness.
 

Celery root marries nicely with other roots and gourds. You’ll often see it paired in soup with parsnip or butternut squash. Recently I combined it with leftover roasted acorn squash along with yellow curry powder, fresh ginger, and garam masala, then served it with sour cream and cilantro. My favorite way to use celery root is solo. A celery root soup is about the easiest soup you can make and the payoff is well beyond the ease of preparation. The flavor is jaunty and rich enough to stand up to a healthy shaving of truffles, which happens to be a great combo.

2 tbsp butter
2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 large yellow onion, chopped
2 – 3 cloves garlic, chopped
1 large celery root, peeled and chopped into 1/2-inch cubes
salt and white pepper, to taste
4 cups vegetable or chicken stock
2 cups water
white truffles, shaved at table (optional)

Saute onion in butter and olive oil over medium heat until softened. Add garlic and cook another minute or two before adding celery root. Cook together, stirring occasionally, a few minutes. Season with salt and white pepper. Add stock and water. Simmer until celery root is soft and ready for blending, at least half an hour. Use immersion blender or food processor to blend thoroughly. Soup should be velvety smooth. Serve hot with shaved truffles on top if you got ’em.

Truffle Nirvana

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The woods were alive with the sounds of trufflers. Dozens of humans and canines barked and yipped and hollered their triumphs and failures through a gloomy grove of 25-year-old Douglas-firs. They ran to and fro, scratching in the dirt with paws and garden cultivators. Most were amateurs, brought together by the 7th annual Oregon Truffle Festival. Longtime truffle researcher Dan Luoma of Oregon State was on hand to offer guidance. Just about everyone found winter white truffles (Tuber oregonense), though the season’s odd weather patterns meant that most of the truffles were still small and less than perfectly ripe.

Later, at a luncheon at Willamette Valley Vineyards, I ate one of the best truffle dishes I’ve ever had: a Pinot Noir-braised pork belly with white truffle-onion jam, dried cherries, and a frisee with raspberry-black truffle vinaigrette (see below). It was a perfectly balanced blend of flavors and textures that was expertly knitted together by the truffle jam. This was proof that an Oregon truffle experience could be a culinary epiphany rather than a shrug.

Eating our home-grown truffles is not always so revelatory. Truffles get raked up too young, sold to retailers who don’t know any better, and then passed on to customers who have no benchmark for comparison.

Fortunately this is not the case with the Oregon Truffle Festival, which aims to educate as well as nourish. The talks and lectures from truffle experts the world over were illuminating, and though not every single dish served over the course of eight different multi-course meals throughout the weekend was a resounding success, most of the dishes used generous amounts of ripe truffles in toothsome ways that showed off the fungi’s singular qualities.

The Oregon Truffle Festival is held at the end of January each year in Eugene, Oregon, in the southern Willamette Valley. The valley is ground zero for our native edible truffles, though they can be found from the Fraser River Valley in British Columbia south to Northern California, in low elevation coastal Douglas-fir forests. This contrasts with European truffles, which are generally found in hardwoods.

Photo: Jen Reyneri

During our bus ride to the truffle patch, Luoma, a forest ecologist, explained that the Willamette Valley offers the best climatic conditions for our native truffles (not too hot in summer, not too cold in winter) and that truffles in general seem to prefer habitats near human activity, in particular cleared agricultural fields replanted with orchards. Truffles have long been associated with wine country, and this association is true for the vineyards of Willamette Valley, many of which have nearby Christmas tree farms or planted groves of Douglas-fir for timber or water retention.

In addition to the guided forays and lectures, the festival included dog-training workshops, cooking classes, and a grower’s forum for the brave cultivation set.

Saturday night’s Grand Truffle Dinner, the coup de grace, was as over the top as promised. I arrived, along with 300 other guests, at a hotel ballroom suffused with the aroma of Oregon black truffles (Leucangium carthusianum). Three-hundred plates covered three long prep tables as the first course made its debut, each plate decorated with a square of Celery Root & Black Truffle Panna Cotta topped with Dungeness Crab Salad & Parisian Pears. The kitchen staff, armed with mandolines, roamed up and down the line, shaving away. The scent of black truffles hung in the air like a heavy fog. Indeed, it was nearly disorienting.

My favorite dish of the night was probably the second course, White Truffle Scented Red & White Quinoa in a Creamy Risotto Style with Riesling Poached Hen’s Egg, Shaved Coppa, Wild Winter Herbs, Lemon Thyme Emulsion & Shaved White Truffles. My favorite dessert of the weekend was a chorus of truffled sweets served earlier that day at Willamette Valley Vineyards: White Truffle Panna Cotta, White Truffle Raspberry Mousse, White Truffle Infused Tapioca, and White Truffle Brittle.

If you’re a lover of truffles who can’t afford a trip to Italy (and who can these days?) or simply curious, I highly recommend the Oregon Truffle Festival. Though not exactly inexpensive, the festival delivers plenty of value for the cost, and as far as I could tell there was no scrimping on the truffles. Festival founders Charles Lefevre and Leslie Scott run an action-packed weekend and the attendees are fun people who enjoy a good time. I made a lot of new friends at the festival, which is reason enough to spend a weekend in the beautiful and bounteous Willamette Valley.

Puree of Parsnip & Watercress Soup

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LOOKING THROUGH THE fridge the other day I found, among other things, an old parsnip, two onion halves, a peeled Yukon Gold potato, and a partial head of celery that was going limp. There was also a nearly full quart of chicken stock that needed to be used immediately.

To these ingredients I added the beautifully robust wild watercress picked in California and some black trumpet mushrooms from the same trip.

2 – 3 tbsp butter
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 medium parsnip, chopped
1 potato, chopped
3 cups vegetable or chicken stock
1 large bunch watercress, stemmed
salt and white pepper, to taste

1. In a soup pot, saute onions in butter over medium heat until slightly caramelized. Add garlic and celery and cook another few minutes until tender, then add chopped parsnip and potato and cook several more minutes.

2. Stir in stock and simmer for 15 or more minutes until parsnip and potato are tender.

3. Add the watercress, allowing it to wilt. Use an immersion blender to puree the soup. Adjust seasonings.

As a finishing touch, I made a crouton with toasted and garlic-rubbed rosemary bread covered in melted mozzarella cheese and topped with a trio of sautéed black trumpets.

Cantonese Shrimp & Winter Mushrooms

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HAPPY YEAR OF THE dragon! We celebrated earlier this week with a feast that included this classic Cantonese preparation, adding to the wok a few handfuls of wild winter mushrooms  to make it even better. Black trumpets and yellowfoot chanterelles, though atypical, are well suited to such a dish with their slightly fruity flavors.

2 tbsp peanut oil
1 tbsp ginger, diced
1 tbsp garlic, diced
1 yellow onion, thinly sliced into half-moons
1/2 lb yellowfoot and black trumpet mushrooms, cleaned and uncut
1/2 lb Chinese leafy green (e.g. bok choy, choy sum)
1/2 lb shrimp, shelled

White Sauce
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp fish sauce
1 tsp Shaoxing wine
2 tsp sugar
2 tsp corn starch
6 tbsp chicken stock
1/4 tsp sesame oil

Mix sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside. Heat oil in wok over high heat. Add ginger and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Add onions and garlic and stir-fry another minute before adding mushrooms. Cook together a few minutes, then add leafy greens and shrimp. When the shrimp begin to color, give sauce a stir and add to wok. Cook, stirring, until shrimp is tender. Serve immediately, then do a dragon dance.

Candy Cap Braised Pork

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Most recipes for candy cap mushrooms are sweet pastries, puddings, and other desserts. Yet candy caps, with their essence of maple syrup, also demand to be paired with pig. Having made the classic baked treat à la fungi—Candy Cap Cookies—I decided to switch my experiments to something savory (though a Candy Cap Bread Pudding sounds pretty good, too).

So I went to my local meat shop and got a little more than three pounds of pork shoulder, which the butcher kindly cut into large chunks. This was a start. I wasn’t sure where I was going but Indian spices seemed like a reasonable next step, and maybe some dried prunes to accentuate the sweetness of the mushrooms and perhaps a splash or two (or three) of port wine. Yes, these ingredients would work together. With a nod to typical French braising, I added carrots and onions, but the final cilantro garnish would make it clear that this was not a dish with two feet in the Western culinary canon—more like a straddling of East and West.

Here, then, is a simple recipe built around dried candy cap mushrooms that is not a dessert.

1 cup dried candy caps, rehydrated with a 1 1/2 cups warm water
3 lbs boneless pork shoulder, cut into large chunks
2 tbsp olive oil
1 yellow onion, sliced into half moons
2 – 3 carrots, sliced into rounds
1 dozen prunes
1 cup port
2 bay leaves

Rub
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp salt
1 tsp coriander
1 tsp curry powder
1 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/2 tsp turmeric

1. In a medium sized bowl, rehydrate 1 cup dried candy cap mushrooms in enough warm water to cover, about 1 1/2 cups, for 20 minutes. Remove mushrooms and wring out excess liquid back into bowl. Soak prunes in stock.

2. Meanwhile, pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Mix together rub ingredients and apply to pork chunks. Heat olive oil in a dutch oven or casserole over medium-high flame and brown meat, in batches if necessary.

3. Remove meat and add onions and carrots. Lower heat to medium and cook several minutes, stirring, until vegetables begin to soften. Add prunes, mushrooms, bay leaves, stock, and wine. Bring to a boil and return meat to pot. Spoon some of the vegetables on top. Liquid should mostly cover the meat but not entirely. Cover and put in oven for 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally, until meat falls apart.

The maple syrupy mushrooms marry nicely with the Indian spices. Substitute red or white wine for the port if you prefer. The finished pork, falling apart among bright orange bobs of stewed carrot, begs for a bright green garnish of cilantro—and I might have added a dollop of Greek yogurt on top if I’d had any. Served over this couscous, the meal was perfect for a wet winter evening.

And it just got better the next day: pulled pork sandwiches!

Candy Cap Cookies

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EVER EATEN mushroom cookies? Nah, not that kind. These cookies will only give you a sugar high.

Candy caps (Lactarius rubidus) are smallish gilled mushrooms that bleed a latex-like fluid when cut, a characteristic of the Lactarius genus. In the case of candy caps, the fluid has a thin skim milk consistency. The mushrooms are generally orangish to cinnamon-colored and hollow-stemmed—not exactly useful identifiers for West Coast species of Lactarius, since there are many that fit this bill, most of which you wouldn’t want to eat. The best field mark I’ve come across involves touch. Run a finger over the pileus of a candy cap and feel a cool, slightly bumpy texture, not unlike a tangerine peel. The sweet smell is another characteristic, though not diagnostic.

The center of their strike zone is the coastal mixed forest of Northern California, where I’ve found them among redwoods and Douglas-fir interspersed with oaks and madrones, usually in damp areas with lots of moss and decaying wood, often near forest edges, trails, and road cuts. 

Mushrooms, with their deep umami, are generally thought of in terms of savory dishes. The candy cap, as its common name suggests, is a break from this tradition. Its singular culinary attribute is most obvious after the mushroom has been dried: an aroma redolent of maple syrup.

This is a basic refrigerator cookie recipe from David Arora’s All that the Rain Promises that’s goosed with candy caps—a good way to showcase the unusual flavor of the mushrooms.

1 cup dried candy cap mushrooms
1 cup butter, softened, plus extra for sauté
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour, sifted
1/2 cup toasted pecans, chopped

1. Rehydrate dried mushrooms for 20 minutes in enough warm water to cover. Wring out excess liquid, pat dry with paper towel, chop, and sauté several minutes with a nob of butter over medium heat. Save stock for another use.

2. Cream together butter and sugar. Beat in egg and vanilla. Slowly add flour while stirring, then chopped nuts and sautéed candy caps.

3. Roll cookie dough into three logs, each about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. I use wax paper and a sushi roller. Wrap logs in wax paper and freeze.

4. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Slice cookies about 1/4 inch thick and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake for 8 – 10 minutes until bottoms of cookies are golden brown.

Serve to mycophobic friends with a tall glass of milk.

Truffle Time

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The holiday season isn’t just about turkey, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. It’s also peak time for truffles. And few foods can make us swoon like these odd fungal tubers. Properly prepared, they might be the sexiest of all our ingredients, evoking even more intense longing than oysters or chocolate. But how many people in this country, even food-obsessed people, can say they’ve had a mind-blowing truffle experience? Part of the problem is that we don’t have a truffle culture here in the U.S. comparable to the truffle cultures of France or Italy. Home cooks don’t know how to shop for truffles or how to prepare them—and, sadly, neither do many restaurateurs, for that matter.

Next month I plan to attend the Oregon Truffle Festival, ground zero for the emerging homegrown truffle culture. The festival is in its seventh year and will feature an assortment of events, from meals and cooking demos to a forum for would-be truffle farmers. My friend Jack Czarnecki will be cooking up some serious truffle fare with his son Chris, chef-owner of Willamette Valley’s famed Joel Palmer House. Other luminaries include Jim Trappe, one of the authors of the Field Guide to North American Truffles, Molly O’Neil, the former New York Times food columnist, and numerous guest chefs, including Josh Feathers of Tennessee’s Blackberry Farm and  Robin Jackson of the Sooke Harbour House in Sooke, B.C., among others. There’s even a truffle dog-training seminar.

Oregon truffle country is also wine country

A quick primer: truffles are ectomycorrhizal fungi that partner with certain species of trees (Douglas-firs for the edible varieties in the Pacific Northwest) in mutually beneficial relationships that involve the exchange of nutrients and water. The truffle’s reproductive strategy is to produce a scent irresistible to certain mammals (e.g., voles, flying squirrels…and humans) that will hungrily dig up the truffle, eat it, and spread its spores.

Describing truffles is no easy task. They’re not much to look at. But, oh, that aroma… It’s musky, sometimes fruity or garlicky, always earthy and, for lack of a better word, funky. Some would say it’s an aroma more appropriate to a honeymoon suite than a dining room table.

For those who want to forage their own, I’d recommend training your dog. I’ve foraged truffles with and without dogs and can report that my success rate went up exponentially with the hound. Sniffing out truffles is no problem for canine smellers, and generally the truffles will be of better quality, which is to say, riper.

Jack Czarnecki with fresh truffles

And therein lies the main problem facing our native truffle industry: too many unripe truffles are being foraged and sold to consumers who don’t know any better. Case in point: A friend of mine bought a local black truffle at a Seattle market the other day and showed it to me proudly. She had big plans for the truffle. I took a whiff. Nothing. The truffle had absolutely no aroma whatsoever. “Take it back and demand a refund,” I told her. She was crestfallen, her dinner plans thwarted.

Be sure to examine your truffle before buying. It should be dry, firm, and pungent. Black truffles, to my nose, smell fruity, somewhat like overripe pineapple, with a distinctly fungal underpinning that is strange and beguiling. White truffles are more garlicky and can pack a wallop. Like other complex foods (e.g., wine, chocolate), the taste and aroma will vary for individual palates. Some people go to pieces in the presence of truffles, while others wonder why the fuss.

Once your truffle is conveyed safely home you’ll need to take precautions in serving it. Slice it thinly over hot food. A little goes a long way. Simply shaved over buttered pasta is a classic way to enjoy the singular essence of truffles. The heat of the pasta reacts with the truffle and the fat in the butter serves to absorb the flavor. Prolonged cooking, on the other hand, will destroy the delicate molecular design of its scent. I don’t understand recipes that call for inserting slivers of truffle in a piece of meat before roasting. The cooking process will likely obliterate the truffle flavor—but perhaps there are ways to pull off such a feat. I’ll be sure to report back on what I learn about cooking with truffles at the Oregon Truffle Festival.

Winter Mushroom Appetizers

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THESE TWO APPETIZER dishes work well with winter mushrooms. The first is a crostini with yellowfoot and chicken liver. The second is a very rich and savory mushroom parfait of sautéed hedgehogs and yellowfoot with wheat berries and mascarpone.

For the crostini. brown a small handful of chicken liver in vegetable oil. Remove from the pan and crumble with the help of a potato masher. In the same pan, sauté a few big handfuls of whole yellowfoot mushrooms and deglaze with a healthy splash of soy sauce. Cook the mushrooms down in the soy until they release all their water and they’re brown. They’ll look almost like weird, squid-like tentacles. No need to add salt because the soy will be plenty salty; in fact, you might want to use a low-sodium variety. Mix back in the crumbled liver and serve over sliced and toasted baguette with a sprinkling of chopped parsley. The result is a serious umami bomb.

For the parfait, first prepare the wheat berries on the stove top. No matter how long you cook them they’ll retain an al dente texture. I used three cups of chicken stock for a cup of berries and simmered in excess of an hour. This was much more than I needed. Next sauté a half-pound of chopped hedgehog and yellowfoot mushrooms in butter with a generous variety of chopped herbs (I used thyme, sage, and oregano). Season to taste. Remove to a bowl and mix in a few dollops of mascarpone. The mixture should be super creamy. Now mix in enough wheat berries so that the ratio is about 3:1 in favor of mushrooms. Serve in goblets with a sprinkling of chives on top.