That Recipe

Photo by Claude Martz

So you've found some morels, or bought some at your local gourmet store, and they're wilting in the 'fridge waiting for this post. Here goes:

Pizza with Morels in Cream Sauce

Serves 4

Ingredients:

1/2 to 1 lb (+/-) fresh morels, halved and cut into thumbnail sized chunks (be sure you have enough to cover a 10” circle without spaces)

1 small shallot, diced

4 oz heavy cream

4 oz good parmesan cheese

8 oz San André cheese, cut into 1/4" slices

1/2 tsp GF soy sauce 

1/2 tsp dried oregano

@ 4 Tablespoons olive oil, divided 

1 Tablespoon unsalted butter

1 Tablespoon fresh basil, chopped

Salt (to taste)

Pinch of sugar

GF Pizza mix to make one 12” pizza (I prefer Analise Roberts recipe, found in Gluten-Free Baking Classics)

Prepare the pizza crust according to directions. Note that if you modify the instructions and bake the crust only half-way, but directly atop a very hot (550) stone, the results will be far tastier.

1)              Clean morels by brushing - do NOT wash. Slice into pieces.

2)             Place 2 tbls olive oil in large skillet. Sauté shallots over high heat until about 1/2 done – 2 – 5 min. Remove and set aside. Lower heat to medium. Melt 1 tbls butter in pan then add morels. Stir occasionally, allowing mushrooms to barely carmelize on each side. Add cream, soy sauce and the pinch of sugar. Simmer @ 5’. Add parmesan, stir until melted. Salt if needed. Remove from heat.

3)             Brush remaining olive oil on pizza crust and sprinkle with basil. Cover with morels, spreading in an even layer. Place slices of San André atop morels. Return to very hot oven for @ 5’, until cheese runs and bubbles.

4)             Remove from oven and allow to cool just enough to not burn your mouth. Slice with pizza wheel and serve. 

Spring Dreaming

With yet another 5" rainstorm dampening (!) NYC, and the daily temperature hovering just below 60, this man's fancy inexorably turns to ... morels.

In case you don't know, morels are mushrooms - members of the genus Morchella. However, they are SO much more than just mushrooms. Many people - myself included - believe them to be the best tasting mushrooms that exist.

Morels come up when the soil temperature is in the high 50's, April and May in NY/NJ. They are found only in certain, very restricted habitats, none of which the hard-bitten 'shroomer would even dream of publicly mentioning.  Of all wild foods, only ginseng inspires more competition, secretive behavior and obsessiveness than morels.

By my calculation, this year the black morels (Morchella negra) will appear the second week of April.  While the rest of the works sweats their tax forms, this old guy will be scrambling the boulders in a deep quiet forest, scanning the earth for something that looks like a pine cone crossed with little brains.

There is, I have to confess, no natural scent more divine than the first whiff of a freshly cut April morel. Here in smoky fungal essence are the promises of spring, dinner, environmental rejuvenation and many months of mushrooming to come. Even this late cold night at my laptop I can envision that moment.

If you've never eaten a morel, take yourself down to a local high-quality grocer in May, the height of the season, and pick some up. I've got some more work to do tonight, but tomorrow when I have more time I'll post my (in)famous pizza with morels in cream sauce recipe. Oh Yeah.

Oh, and a special bulletin for readers in the Pacific Northwest: My GF Sourdough Breads Workshop is coming back on Saturday May 15. Click here for details.