Tough

Black trumpet mushrooms and a bolete

This is going to be a tough one for you folks in the PNW. Your chanterelle season won’t begin for a few months, but ours (New Jersey) is but days away.

Chanterelles and black trumpet mushrooms are magic bullets for a terrific mushroom quiche.

Here’s my recipe:

Ingredients:

16 Oz. Chanterelles, brushed clean and cut into bite-sized pieces.

2 Oz. Black trumpet mushrooms, brushed clean and chopped very fine.

Small red onion (@ 2 golf balls in size) chopped fine.

2 TBLS butter

1 TBLS Hazelnut oil

1 small container (8 Oz) heavy cream

4 eggs

1/3 – 1/2 cup grated Ossau-Iraty (Basque) cheese

2/3 – 1 cup grated Parmesan cheese

3 TBLS chopped fresh thyme

1 TBLS chopped fresh oregano

1/2 tsp gluten-free soy sauce

dash of sugar

dash of fresh grated nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

1 single-layer pie shell, preferably in a deep pan.

Steps:

1)         Find the mushrooms. Not into foraging? Wegman’s Supermarket had Chanterelles last week.

2)         Blind-bake the pie shell for @ 10 – 12 minutes.

3)         Melt the butter in a large skillet and heat until just below the smoke point.

Toss in the onion and sauté until translucent. Add the mushrooms. Allow to barely caramelize then reduce heat, add the soy sauce and the sugar and simmer @ 5 minutes. Toss in 1/4 of the spices. Stir. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

4)         Preheat oven to 375 F

5)         Use the grated Ossau-Iraty as the first layer in the shell. Place the mushroom mix atop that.

6)         Mix eggs, the cream, the nutmeg, the salt and pepper. Pour over mushrooms. Sprinkle remaining spices atop this. Cover with the grated Parmesan

7)         Bake 30 – 45 minutes. Allow to cool slightly before serving.

When it rains in Vermont...

If you manage to find a nice chanterelle spot you could end up with a huge batch of these tasty, apricot-scented mushrooms. Black trumpet habitat is usually nearby, so you might get lucky and have bushel baskets of both. If you do, here’s a method of preservation:

Don’t dry your chanterelles – it toughens them. Instead, measure out portions, sauté in unsalted butter until about 2/3 done (+/- 5 minutes), then cool, put into freezer bags and store in your freezer. Chanterelles are great with eggs.

You can dry black trumpets and not lose much flavor, but a better plan is to make “Black Butter.” Start with about 2 dry quarts black trumpets well-brushed and 4 sticks (1 pound) butter warmed to room temperature. Chop the trumpets roughly, then sauté in 1 stick of the butter for 8 minutes. Note: You can’t tell if these mushrooms are cooked by their appearance, you must use a clock. When done, allow the mushrooms to cool, then, using a food processor, blend them and the remaining 3 sticks of butter to a smooth black paste.

Black Butter is great on corn-on-the-cob. You can also use it instead of butter and black trumpets in the above recipe.

Happy foraging. And remember, don’t eat a mushroom unless you are 100% certain it is the right species. There ARE poisonous look-alikes out there. In fact there is a poisonous look-alike in the picture of mushrooms on my kitchen table.