Mushrooms are by their very nature mysterious ingredients. Beautiful, strange, slightly scary — in some cases very scary — whole cultures avoid mushrooms out of fear. Obviously I don’t fall into that category.
I’ve yet to meet a mushroom I hated, although those slimy canned things in the mega-mart may qualify. Whether it is the majestic porcini or the simple button mushroom, I love them all. Below are my, as always, idiosyncratic mushroom recipes.
GENERAL MUSHROOM RECIPES
Wild Mushroom Pierogi
Traditional Polish dumplings filled with wild mushrooms (or any other kind of mushroom), and served with caramelized onions, dill and sour cream.
Wild Mushroom Bisque
This is the real “cream of mushroom soup,” one you’ll be proud to serve anyone.
Italian Marinated Mushrooms
This is by far the best way to preserve meaty mushrooms like porcini, chanterelles, or horse mushrooms. It also works with cremini mushrooms from the store.
Polish Salted Mushrooms
An old Polish method of preserving mushrooms (usually saffron milk caps), that makes a great, salty accompaniment to beer, bread… or vodka.
Wild Rice Salad with Mushrooms
A fantastic side dish or vegetarian dinner made with wild rice and any mushrooms you have on hand.
Mushroom Pesto Dolmas
Sauteed, chopped mushrooms mixed with pesto and stuffed in a grape leaf. An awesome appetizer.
Squash Gnocchi with Wild Mushrooms
Wild mushrooms tossed with homemade squash gnocchi.
Wild Mushroom Ragu
A rich, Italian-style mushroom ragu, served with cavatelli pasta.
PORCINI RECIPES
General Tips on Cooking Porcini Mushrooms
Spring Porcini Salad
What you need to know about cooking with springtime porcini, which are a little different from the fall varieties. My favorite? A sort of grilled porcini salad.
Grilled Porcini
Pretty porcini sliced thickly, grilled over a hot fire and served with green onions, lemon zest and preserved garlic.
Porcini Risotto
A kicked up risotto made with both fresh and dried porcini and topped with seared squab or duck.
Porcini Ravioli
Another “porcini double,” as there is porcini powder in the pasta and fresh porcini in the filling.
Raw Porcini Salad
Not for everyone (some people get an upset stomach from raw porcini), but if you can eat them, this is the way to go: Simple with oregano vinaigrette and prosciutto.
CHANTERELLE RECIPES
Chanterelles with Pumpkin Spaetzle
A gorgeous autumn dish with fresh chanterelles, homemade spaetzle, pine nuts and garlic.
Escoffier's Cream of Chanterelle Soup
Quite possibly the sexiest soup ever made.
Pickled Chanterelle Mushrooms
Chanterelles are not very good dried, but they are excellent pickled!
Chanterelle Stuffing
A holiday classic for us, this is how we make our Thanksgiving dressing.
Jaegerschnitzel with Chanterelles
Called pfifferling in German, chanterelles are the best mushroom for making jaegerschnitzel.
A primer on working with chanterelle mushrooms in various ways.
Chanterelles in All Their Forms
Indentifying and Cooking with Yellowfoot Chanterelles
Learn about this lesser-known chanterelle and you’ll covet them as much as regular ones.
MOREL MUSHROOMS
Fried Morel Mushrooms
The classic. This is the way most Midwesterners eat their morels, and they’re not wrong. The flour coating really helps seal in the true flavor of the morels.
How to Forage For Morels in the West
Tips on how to find, harvest, and store morel mushrooms from burn sites in the West.
Morel Tortellini
Little packets of love, filled with a mix of morels (or any other mushroom) and ricotta cheese, served with more mushrooms, peas and green onions.
Gifts of the Pine
Morel mushrooms with homemade pasta, pine nuts and spruce tips. It’s as good as it looks!
Morel Risotto
I made this dish every spring. Morels, like most mushrooms, are perfect for an Italian risotto.
Salad of Morels, Fiddleheads and Ramps
There is a reason these ingredients are so good together. They just work.
Ramp Pasta with Morels
Green pasta made with pureed ramps served with fresh morels. It’s spring on a plate!
Morel Ragout with Trout
Morels, wild onions and bracken fiddleheads served with simply seared trout or salmon.
Morel Sauce with Venison Medallions
A richer, darker morel sauce to go with venison backstrap.
Venison-Morel Burgers
Again, the pairing of morels with venison, this time I use dried morel powder in the burger mix and then saute morels for on top of the burger. It’s pretty awesome.
BLACK TRUMPET MUSHROOMS
Midnight Rice
Black rice “risotto” with black trumpet mushrooms. Eerily good.
Wild Mushrooms with Parsley Sauce
A trio of winter mushrooms: Black trumpets, hedgehogs and yellowfoot mushrooms, served with a parsley sauce.
OTHER MUSHROOM RECIPES
Classic Button Mushrooms Provencale
This is right out of the bible of French haute cuisine, Escoffier’s “Le Guide Culinaire.” Wild meadow mushrooms, sauteed with garlic, olive oil, lemon and parsley.
Sparassis, the Cauliflower Mushroom
What you need to know to identify and cook this amazing edible mushroom!
Mushroom ‘Potatoes’
King trumpet mushrooms (which are store-bought, not wild) sliced and sauteed in spiced butter. They look exactly like fried potatoes.
Matsutake Gohan
One of the most classic matsutake mushroom recipes there is – it’s a deceptively simple Japanese rice dish.
Sichuan Stir Fry Puffballs
Puffballs are kinda like tofu, so why not make a classic spicy tofu dish — ma po tofu — using puffballs instead of tofu?
Mushrooms with Pheasant, Cream and Brandy
This recipe showcases the pretty lilac-colored blewit mushroom, but you can use regular button mushrooms, too. And you can use chicken instead of pheasant.
White Truffle Risotto
A classic dish from Alba, in Italy. Only I use wild Oregon white truffles. So decadent. So good.
FORAGING FOR EDIBLE AMANITAS
Eating Santa’s Shroom
How to safely eat Amanita muscaria by leaching out the hallucinogenic compounds. Once you do this, these mushrooms taste great!
Edible Amanitas: Vernicoccora
This is a big, edible amanita that shows up in springtime here in the West. Here’s how to identify it safely. Once you do, it is well worth eating.
Velosa, My Illicit Love
My favorite mushroom of all time. Amanita velosa is another springtime mushroom, daintier than vernicoccora and better tasting. Here’s why I love it and how to ID it.
Debra: I can eat porcini and matsutake shaved raw, but some people get a stomach upset from them. And morels absolutely must be cooked, or they are actually poisonous! Best to cook them all.