Print

Email story

Comment

Email editor

Food

Chefs' table: Extra morels a delight to behold - and devour

By GUI ALINAT
Published July 5, 2006

Here I am, contemplating 10 pounds of loose, fresh morel mushrooms piled over a clean kitchen towel on my stainless steel worktable. Ten pounds is a lot of mushrooms to contemplate, and just standing here looking at something that gorgeous is gratifying, though totally unproductive.

Why my source overnighted 10 pounds of morels instead of the 1 pound I truly need remains a mystery. But I quickly push the thought out of my mind since improvised gastronomic feasts are pretty much what I live for. I'll just call a few buddies of discriminating appetite, those for whom a Da Vinci cod sounds like better entertainment than the movie of nearly the same name. We'll pig out on morels, out of sheer and spontaneous conviviality.

For the time being, though, my mushrooms captivate me. Elusive and expensive, these little, dark, spongelike cones suggest noble thoughts of recipes and hyperactive appetite. Certainly in abundance they do.

Morels grow wild in the North, as well as along the Alaskan coast and down into Oregon, Washington and Northern California. The season, from May to September, spreads through the Midwest and Northeast, starting each time in a precise fashion, dictated by a delicate balance of many factors such as moisture, temperature, humidity, variance between daytime and nighttime temperature, soil acidity and other seasonal elements.

My in-laws in Michigan sometimes find some in their own back yard after a rain, as soon as spring temperatures climb into the 60s during the day and are no colder than the 40s at night.

Like truffle cultivation, morels can now be farmed instead of foraged. But the process is so delicate and unproductive that randomly chasing the woods for hours sounds like a good idea.

And I remember from the early days of my childhood when, as a summer ritual in southern France, I hiked around hilly, musty underwoods with my friends and family. We were led by my grandfather, the patriarch who knew "the spots." We paced up and down, pocket knife and onion bag in hand, in search of porcinis, chanterelles and black trumpets, sorting through shoots and decaying leaves around dead or dying elms and pines, our shoes muddy and our feet wet. We were excited when successful, exhausted when we failed.

It is morel season right now, and even though they don't grow wild in the South, you can find them if you look. The Internet is a great source. Heck, even eBay sells morels! Bids starting at $9.95 for a half pound, plus shipping. Make sure though when searching elsewhere on the Internet that you Google "wild, fresh morels," not to be confused with dried morels, offered locally at some specialty stores for an outrageous $19.90 per ounce.

Or ask your snowbird friends and relatives to ship some to you. After the lovely winter they had visiting you in Florida, they surely owe you.

Recipes are plentiful. Delicious as an accompaniment with veal, pheasant, or even chicken and beef, fresh morels don't need much embellishment. If you ask me, simpler is better. Dressing them up with complicated techniques and headache-triggering lists of ingredients would be a confession of gastronomic failure. Like all wild mushrooms, it's nice to just saute them in butter with a little sea salt, freshly ground pepper and chopped parsley. They will give water, which will eventually reduce under high heat, then disappear. The morels will develop a nice buttery texture: time to serve.

Other classics involve frying them individually in a simple batter, or au gratin: sautéed and passed under the broiler with Alfredo sauce, freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano and bread crumbs. They can also be stuffed, I suppose, using a piping bag, with goat cheese, cream cheese, spinach or chicken mousse.

With 9 pounds of leftover mushrooms, I consider how to use them. They can be turned into a morel mushroom cream sauce: Sauté in butter with shallots, then flambé with cognac and deglaze with Chardonnay, add stock and cream, then reduce. As my source says: "Morels and cream have a natural love affair" and that's mainly because the viscous liquid fills up the tiny crevices and pulls out the earthy essence. The sauce is delicious with beef tenderloin or over pasta, anyway.

Don't skip the contemplating part, though. It's part of the fun.

Chef Gui Alinat welcomes questions about cooking and will respond to those of general interest in future columns. Sorry, he can't take phone calls or answer individual requests. Send questions to him in care of Taste, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail him at chefgui@chefgui.com Please include your name and city of residence.

[Last modified July 5, 2006, 09:18:50]