Deliciously Smooth -- Chanterelle Cream Sauce

One of the prettiest non-features of any mushroom is the smooth underside of Cantharellus lateritius or the aptly named smooth chanterelle. It grows in quite abundance around certain parts of Missouri and Mid-MO has its own hot spots. They are just starting to flush and the lack of rain has them coming on slowly yet in good numbers.

Although common chanterelles could easily be mistaken for the poisonous jack-o-lantern, the smooth underside provides certainty of the bountiful gourmet goodness that they bring, The smell is also a dead give away. If you get a lot of them together in a bag you'll notice this waxy light fruity smell instead of the usual pungent fungus smell of other mushrooms. Many guides describe the smell like apricots. And they taste the same way. Not like apricots, mind you, but unusual and unlike any other mushroom. They rival morels in taste in my own humble opinion, but then again I may not be that objective tonight, as I slathered a mess of sauteed chants over my KC strip for dinner.

Let me show you how easy these smooth fellows can make you into a gourmet. I was hungry and I found a great sale on steaks, but I wasn't thinking it through and so I didn't get anything to go with it. Now I have chanterelles, so I knew they were going in there - three different varieties in fact (common yellow and orange ones and of course smooths). I looked around and found an onion from the farmer's market and a little bit of cream left over from a batch of home-made ice cream for the 4th. I needed garlic but was out. I was about to turn to the powdered stuff when I remembered some garlic that had gone wild behind the house, so I went out and pulled some up. It was small but would do the trick.

And now for the recipe. Did I say that I do not believe in recipes and rarely follow one. That being said, be ready for long meandering explanations that you will have to translate onto your own recipe card if you want to preserve it. Also I am not a foodie and this is NOT a food blog. I just want to set the record straight.

Wednesday Night's Chanterelle Cream Sauce

Step one, pull the chanterelles into even pieces. You can cut them if you want, but I like the rougher look and it is just plain easier. Put a saute pan on medium heat and add just the tiniest bit of oil (preferably a light olive oil) to wet the pan.

Place the chanterelles in the pan and saute on medium stirring occasionally until they have reduced in size by half.

Add in some sliced onion, as much or as little as you like. Continue sauteing until the onion has just gotten translucent. Mince and add in the garlic and saute for 2 to 3 minutes.

Add in some cream. I was cooking for one here, so I started with only a handful of chants and I used about 1/3 cup of cream and some beef stock. I didn't have stock on hand because I grilled my steak, but I made some by cutting off 1/4 of a beef bullion cube and dissolving it in a 1/4 cup of water (if you want to slather this over chicken use chicken stock, etc.) Simmer on medium stirring often to reduce. Salt and pepper to taste.

When it has reduced enough it should be just about the consistency of that good old gravy at Thanksgiving.

Just at the end add small dab of butter, dissolve and stir for just 30 seconds. Pour it on and eat away. Be careful though it is very rich. I could not even finish my steak. Nothing better than these kind of leftovers.

You would pay $20 - 25 bucks for a steak like that in a restaurant. I know because I have. It just goes to show the rich rewards you can find in the woods if you can bear the heat and the bugs, oh and those dang spider webs. I think I hate the feeling of walking head-down, yet face first, into those sticky things most of all. However, it is well worth it.

Chanterelle Trail

Now some may ask where the heck this trail is, but this time of year if you dare to go out in the heat, in most wooded parks in Mid-MO you are bound to come along a patch or two of chanterelles.

In fact the one pictured to the left may be an as of yet unidentified type. It has the same size and stature of the common yellow cibarius-like chanterelle showing defined ridges, but it is the same orange color as a smooth chanterelle. I handed it off to a professional for proper identification and DNA testing. With the backlog though he said that it could be 4 to 6 years before he knows what it is for sure.

Anyway the nice meaty smooth chants were just starting last week, so for anyone who came on the weekend hunt, you should go back and start picking. The rains have them at about the perfect size and there are lots and lots of buttons of more to come.

Here are a few videos to get you wanting to grab a basket and hit the woods.

No Foray Sunday

Well we came and we hunted but the lack of rain worked against us and you could walk parts of the woods for a long time and see no signs of fungal life. Despite the dry weather, we did manage to turn up around 32 different varieties of mushrooms, including a small mess of common and yellow chanterelles.

There was not a bolete to be found. Even the little ones I had left behind last weekend to grow had shriveled up in the lack of rain. There has been a lot of rain to the north and to the south but not on the state park. It even did so today as rain clouds passed to the north and developed right over us but only let out a few sprinkles before raining down to the east.

So due to the lack of rain there will be no hunt tomorrow. We will postpone the hunt for now. There were lots of little chanterelle buttons, so as soon as the water starts they should be ready to pick. Hopefully it will be soon.

For those who enjoyed the foray and or those who missed it and want to see what one is like. There is another one planned for Oct. 8 & 9 to hopefully hunt out some hens and maybe some fall chanterelles or trumpets. So mark your calendars now, the location will be out at the Cedar Creek District of Mark Twain National Forest.

Foray Update - This Weekend (June 25-26)

Just a reminder of the Mid-MO mushroom foray this weekend. The rain hasn't been as plentiful as I would like (though that is probably a good thing for those along the Big Muddy) there are still mushrooms to be found in the woods. Reports of chanterelles, boletes, chicken of the woods, and numerous non-edibles have been coming in all week.

For those who plan to attend, here are few things you may want to consider bringing along.

1. Water and plenty of it (three is none at the camp but you can get it in other parts of the park)
2. Food for lunch and snacks
3. Sunscreen
4. Bug spray (the ticks and skeeters are both pretty bad this year)
5. Rain gear or umbrella, unless you don't mind getting wet. (There's a good chance of showers sometime tomorrow and Sunday)
6. A basket or bags for collecting mushrooms.
7. A roll of aluminum foil. If you are collecting both edible and non-edibles then you don't want to get what could possibly be a poisonous mushroom (or even a piece of one) mixed in with your chanterelles. You can make little bags with the foil and keep everything separate in your bag/basket.

I will be checking my email tonight if you have any last minute questions or need more information. Hope to see you this weekend.

Foray Weekend - June 25 & 26 - Hope to See You There

If you have ever wanted to go out and learn about some of the others with the help of some seasoned mushroom hunters, or you have ever just wanted to to know what the heck that mushroom is then this weekend is for you.

In the hopes of generating enough mushroom interest to form a local chapter of the MO Mycological Society, I am organizing a few forays this year around Columbia.

The first will be Saturday June 25 and Sunday June 26, beginning at 9 a.m. at Rock Bridge State Park Plan to meet at the Special Use Camp in the Gans Creek Nature Area of Rock Bridge. Click here for a map of the park. the camp is listed with a "C" on the map just north of 163 near the western edge of the park map. Mycologista found a better map which actually has the camp listed. You turn north onto Raylea Lane off of 163 to get to the campsite and meeting place.

Camping is available on Friday (24th) and Saturday night for those out of the area at a rate of $2 per person per night. Cheap but primitive, only pit toilets are available. Message me for more information if you intend to camp. We will carpool to the trails from the camp (some can just forage along the trails running out of camp), then return to identify and share what we find. If you can stay for dinner please bring some food to share. I will see if I can get some BBQ going and I am sure we can find a few fungi to fix up for those hunting the "others" for the first time to try.

With all the moisture, there should be plenty of stuff around and there is lots of ground to cover in Rock Bridge. Last year at that time the early chanterelles were out, as well as chickens, and some tasty edible boletes. Early scouting last Saturday found a handful of chnats and a whole lot of buttons, so there should be some chants and we may even find a few other edibles.

Regardless, there will be a lot of the non-edibles out there and if you want to learn more about identification of all mushrooms, this is the place to be. You can go out and pick any fungus and bring it back for more experienced mushroomers to identify.

Email me if you have any questions or need additional information.

Oregon Mountain Black Morels

Sorry for the lack of posts, but I was on vacation in Oregon camping, hiking, biking, and if possible I was hoping to maybe find a mushroom or two. The week started off slow mushroomwise. The west has had a clod wet spring which meant that a lot of mountain areas still had lots of snow so we mainly stuck to other outdoor activities.

However while hiking a orgeous trail along some falls in the McKenzie River Valley we did come across some hedgehogs. They had come up last fall and overwintered in th snowpack. We found many that were mushy and rooten as they thawed out, but here and there you would find one that was firm and fresh still after the thaw. That gave me my first taste of mushroom hunting so I had to look more.

We also found the one truly deadly false morel, gyromitra esculenta, which is the one false morel that has documented deaths associated with it. As you can see from the photo, it is very dark in color. It also has a truly hollow stem, so it is pretty easy to identify compared to other false morels you find in the mountains out west, which is primarily the snowbank false morel or gyromitra gigas, which looks a lot like the g. carolinas that I find in my area except it is brown instead of red.

These were all good signs that morels could be out there, so we kept moving north and got to Mt. Hood National Forest. I checked in at the ranger station to ask about which trails were open to hiking or biking, but as I started talking with the ranger I noticed a fellow next to me was filling out forms for a mushroom picking permit. Naturally, I had to ask and found out that many people had been getting permits in the last week and they were free for those picking for personal consumption. I quickly filled out the forms and provided my I.D. to verify my identity. In return, I got a permit and a really detailed map of the area showing area where you could and could not look for mushrooms.

With over 295,917 acres, it was quite daunting to decide where to begin in the area. Most of the area in the higher elevations was still covered in snow, so that helped limit it a bit. The map limited it a bit more. After talking mushrooms with the two rangers for about five minutes and winning them over, they finally gave up some key information, suggesting a part of the park with southern slopes and lots of ponderosa pine, so I headed out.

I was with an old friend who was not into mushroom hunting, but was nice enough to indulge my passion. As we were driving in and I was trying to find a nice south facing slope

to begin, I made my friend Mike slow down so I could do some recon. Suddenly I spotted something a little darker and pointed straight up amongst the pine cones and needles littering the side of the road.

Mike stopped and I got out and sure enough there was a nice black morel. I looked around and found about 8 more in that area and took this video.

I continued to hunt along the road for about an hour while Mike rode his bike around the trails in the area. Here is another video of an along the road find. Notice the car going by in the background. Luckily I was hidden behind some small evergreens and was not seen.

We had walkie talkies and he kept seeing other folks out mushroom hunting, so I knew I was in the right area. We actually scared quite a few people as our walkies rang out in the woods. I guess most people aren't used to that kind of communications as they usually just yell back and forth while hunting (if you can hear this, it is also a useful way to gather some information about what is hitting). Here is a video where you can hear Mike checking in to see where I am at just as I was recording a find.

We were trying to figure out where to go next when we met some folks who Mike had ran into earlier in the woods. I was taking a photo for my kids using some stuffed animals to document my trip like in that one commercial and I think that sparked their curiosity so they stopped.

After some introductions, we explained that we were out on vacation and had decided to try and find some morels. They asked if we had found any and I showed them our finds at the time, which was about 30 morels. I guess showing them that we could find them brought them around a bit and we began talking a bit more. They gradually started opening up more and telling me about some of their own recent and past finds in the area. After about 20 minutes they said they were moving on to do some road hunting and to check a few more areas and surprised us when they asked us if we wanted to tag along. Most people are very secretive about their spots, but our good nature and my passion for mushrooms must have won them over.

Our hosts, who wish to remain anonymous online, were incredibly generous. When they found out Mike had never found a mushroom before, it became their first task to make sure he would find his first. This was great because I couldn't get MIke to hunt with me, but he is too nice to strangers to say no, so he was forced to get a taste of the hunt. We continue to hunt with them for the rest of the afternoon into the early evening.

They also hunted other mushrooms and it was great to swap stories of hunting and discuss the differences between hunting out West compared to the Midwest. One of our hosts was originally from Michigan, so I got a few classic stories from there as well. After hunting with them we had easily collected our limit for the day, which was one gallon. We gladly gave half of them to one of our hosts who had not found as many and still ended up with over 50 morels coming in just over a pound (they were still fairly small because of the cooler than usual spring).

We camped in the area that night which was free because it was before the official season began and just walking around camp I found tem more on the edge of of trails and the road. I didn't see a pattern in regards to trees. Now I don't know my evergreens like I do the deciduous trees back home, but I can tell a few pines and western cedars and blue spruce. I found morels by all of them. The key seemed to be disturbed areas like OTV or game trails, along roadways, and in sections that had been logged a while ago.

In the end I could not have asked for a better day of hunting. Found plenty of mushrooms, learned a lot of new tricks about a brand new area, I got to find my first black morels of the year, which to me have a richer flavor and are preferred despite their more delicate nature. And most importantly, I got to make some new friends in the mushroom world.

And being like most mushroomers I have met these were really good people. One even knew the director of operations at a local ski resort and hooked us up with comp tickets and a nice discount for rentals. We were already planning to ski the next day. Besides mushroom hunting, there is nothing more I love than skiing, so getting to ski at one of the primo facilities where the US olympians train in the summer for only $20 was the icing on the cake to a perfect trip.

A big thanks goes out to the mushroom hunter who set it all up. You are the best, to not only share your comp tickets but for sharing your knowledge and secrets to finding mountain morels after meeting two strangers from out of town. Very few would be so kind and generous and you can expect an early delivery of morels from the Midwest next year. You really made the end of the trip exceptional and gave us some great stories to share around future campfires.

Late Season Missouri Morels

Believe it or not but with all this cool weather there are still morels around to be had. You may also find a few rotten ones but if you keep looking eventually you can come across some real beauties.

Generally late season morels are those big beer can yellows like the one in my hand a few pictures below, but if you luck out you can find some nice fresh ones like the one to the left.

This one is actually a diferent type of morel than I usually find. I was lucky enough to be told about a patch of "small morels" by some friends who were out letterboxing when they stumbled across a nice motherlode (which proves that some of the best finds are just found by getting out in the woods). They said they were all small which was unusual compared to the big yellows they had found in other areas. That was my first clue that they could be the true late season morel, Morchella deliciosa When I located the spot, which was an adventure in itself due to the mischievous nature of the letterboxers, I soon realized that they were indeed m. deliciosa. In an old Missouri Conservationist story, they have a little more information.

Late Morel (Morchella deliciosa)

• Appears after all other species are overmature or gone.
• Their small size (1-3 inches) is disappointing compared to giants.
• Pits are large and few compared to other species.
• The least understood and most often overlooked species.
• Excellent flavor, but often difficult to find enough for a meal.

They say you can find them well into May if you look hard enough and find the right spot. The ones I found were pictured here in the top row.

Notice how they have smaller and more pointed tops. Also if you take a closer look at the photo, you will notice how the pits are vertically arranged (the ridges run pretty much straight up and down the cap), more like black morels. I also found those grays and that big yellow today and placed them in the photo for shape, size, and pit comparison. They are the common morel or Morchella esculenta I had to go dark and deep to find those few. By dark and deep, I mean go way off trail into those deep dark ravines and draws in the hills, or in this case a large city park.

The thing about late season hunting is that if you are hunting the regular yellow morels they are easy to find. I saw this one from 100 feet through some pretty thick bush honeysuckle. It was a meal in itself.

The true late season morels are much, much harder to find. First they are tiny so seeing them is tough and then they are incredible hiders because of their small size. Take this video for example:

And a big thanks to I Dig Toasters and MOUR4ME for telling me about thee little guys, so I could find and document them on my blog and get a good taste of late morels. They are tiny but very tasty in my book.

What was best about these was that they were in another city park. Just a small section of woods that is in the middle of a neighborhood. Just goes to show, you never know what you will find in any old small patch of woods until you get out there and look. I am not saying you will always find something, but sometimes you may be pleasantly surprised.