Lactarius Lasagna

The sphaerocysts in the tissue of most Lactarius make them less than perfectly palatable as far as their texture goes. This dish seems to incorporate them to advantage.

• Put a double handful of Lactarius deliciosus in a pan with a drop of olive oil over medium heat, sauté until they begin to give off their liquor.
  
• Add an onion and two cloves of garlic, both chopped, continue cooking for a few moments before you swash the pan with half a wineglass of, well, wine. Add some salt, groun white peppercorns, some fresh basil, a roasted, peeled and chopped cubanelle capsicum, and sixd or so ripe tomatoes, peeled seeded and chopped.
• Keep sufficient liquid in the pan to preserve the sauce from burning, and cook until the tomatoes break down partially, say fifteen minutes. Keep it quite moist if you will be using the modern style of lasagna noodles which don't require precooking.
  
• Let the sauce cool.
  
• Prepare the stuffing by mashing cooked baby Lima beans and adding chopped capers, marinated artichoke hearts with a drop of their oil, a handful of parsley, and salt.
  
• Put half of the sauce into your lasagna pan, then half of the noodles in one layer, then the bean filling, the other half of the noodles, and the rest of the sauce.
  
• Bake in a slow to moderate oven for 40 minutes or so, don't let it burn!
  
• Let the finished dish rest for 15 minutes after removing it from the oven to set somewhat.

Back to Recipes

Hericium warm salad

• Put the juice of half a lemon or a tablespoonful of vinegar into some boiling salted water, enough to cover six small artichokes.
  
• Cook, between a simmer and a seethe, for fifteen minutes. Allow them to cool in their liquor.
  
• Meanwhile, sauté a finely sliced leek (or two if small) in your best oil until translucent.
  
• Add the Hericium, torn into pieces. (I had the pleasure of combining H. erinaceus, H. ramosum and H. abietinus in the same dish!) Season with salt and a bit of ground coriander seed.
  
• Continue the sauté while you strip off and eat the tender leaf bottoms of the artichokes, dipped in something or other.
  
• Spoon out the 'chokes' trim the stems, and quarter the hearts.
  
• Crush a dozen capers in a wooden bowl well rubbed with garlic. Add a spoon of oil and some vinegar or lemon juice, and a few drops of brine from the caper jar. Tear some nice bitter greens, perhaps young escarole or chicory (endive), into the bowl.
  
• Turn the artichokes in the fungus mixture just until heated.
  
• Quickly toss the result with the greens, and serve with the best loaf you can find.
  

Back to Recipes

Polyporus squamosus, in *Ants on Beanstalks*

• First, set to soak in cold water a quantity of bean-thread noodles, the ones made from mung bean starch.
  
• Put some cold-pressed peanut oil into a pan and brown two cloves of peeled bruised garlic and a knuckle of ginger-root, also smacked with the flat of the knife, until they give off a pleasant aroma. Discard the solids.
  
• Meanwhile have diced one large polypore into ant-length pieces, the breadth of a match stick.
  
• Salt the oil and sauté these in the same pan, adding half a teacup of wine, and then the same of stock, when it becomes necessary.
  
• Add a finely chopped Scotch bonnet or other powerful capsicum just after the first moistening, and a spoonful of molasses just after the second.
  
• Cook for fifteen minutes, gently. Adjust the seasonings and keep hot.
  
• Boil the mung bean threads in salted water; begin to test them after only fifteen seconds. When they are just the tough side of toothsome, drain and quickly mix them with the contents of the pan. Serve out and garnish with scallions chopped into very fine rings.
  
• This is an adaptation of a Chinese dish that is made with finely diced pork. I first had such a thing in Kalimpong, on the border of Sikkim, the ancient market-terminus of the caravan route across the Himalaya.
  

Back to Recipes

Clitocybe nuda (=Lepista nudum) in *Purple Garlic Toast*

• This is something else on an autumn day in the woods, after a long afternoon of foraging and paddling.
  
• Wipe any debris from your blewits with a towel and slice them thinly. Turn them in some hot oil with a pinch of salt over a medium flame until they are quite done. Keep hot.
  
• Roast; either in an oven or on a grill, or buried in the ashes if you are out in the woods, an entire head of the freshest garlic you can find. (If it is old, the cloves will have been preparing to sprout, rendering them less than perfect for this dish.) Don't wrap it in anything, but you could sprinkle it with a few drops of water. Bake until the contents of each clove become soft and languid. Let cool to handling temperature.
  
• Slice slabs of bread; whole-meal, dense rye, baguette, any sort will do, it can certainly be somewhat stale. Lightly brush each one with walnut or olive oil.
  
• Scrape the contents of a clove, or two if they're small, onto each piece of bread and spread to the edges with a knife. Broil them, or bake them in a hot oven, or prop them before the fire until the garlic paste begins to colour.
  
• Press the mushrooms down gently onto the garlic paste (so that they are less likely to fall off) and serve with hot sweet Labrador tea from the tamarack bog.
  

Back to Recipes

Gomphidius glutinosus au fenouil

Here, as promised in the Edibles area, is my recipe in honour of the dried Gomphidius glutinosus!

• Sort, wash and boil three handfuls of black-eyed peas in unsalted water until quite soft. Keep them warm, just covered in their liquor.
• Soak a handful of mushrooms in just a bit of water.
• Slice and salt a small bulb of fennel, no leaves, for twenty minutes, rinse, and dry in a towel.
• Drain the legumes and the mushrooms, combine their liquid elements, and bring to the boil, adding some salt, a demitasse of Xéres, and a stalk of parsley. Reduce by about half, then simmer the mushrooms in this for five minutes or so. Add the fennel slices and simmer two minutes more. Remove the parsley stalk.
• In an iron skillet or perhaps a casuéla, sauté a couple of chopped shallots in a spoonful of good oil, until they're beginning to colour. Add twenty bitter almonds.
  
• Add the drained peas and turn them in the hot oil for a moment or two. When they begin to stick, pour in all the mushroom and fennel mixture. Bring to a boil, then transfer to a pre-heated medium oven and bake for three quarters of an hour, breaking the crust that forms on the top down with a wooden spoon every ten minutes but the last, as in the manner of a cassoulet.
• Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.
  

Steamed rice and a salad of cantaloupe in vinaigrette seemed to do the trick. We drank a rich thimbleberry beer zymurgized by Rob Rosen. It's a rough life.

Back to Recipes

Morels, Wild Onions and Asparagus

In some seasons, I've found that Morchella angusticeps or elata, especially if the fungi have been rained on a good deal, can have a very attenuated and delicate flavour. This simple treatment retains and enhances their subtle sapidity, even though the 'ramp' are so pungent.

• Chop and sauté a handful of wild onions in a bit of olive oil.
  
• Add the halved morels when the onions are somewhat caramelized. Season with salt at this point.
  
• Simmer, and add water when the morel liquor reduces, to keep things moistened, and stir occasionally.
  
• After ten minutes, add the stalks of the asparagus spears, cut into pieces, reserving the heads for addition after a few more minutes. See that enough liquid remains for sauce. When the asparagus are almost done, thicken with some arrowroot mixed with cold water, simmer a moment more, and serve over hand-cut semolina noodles.
  

Back to Recipes

Cèpes in Savoy

• Have ready some nice steamed rice, cooked the day before and refrigerated overnight.
• Wilt all the leaves of a small savoy cabbage in some boiling salted water for a few moments, then drain.
• Soak a handful of dried Boletus edulis slices in cold water to reconstitute them, then squeeze, reserving the soaking liquor.
• Wipe, sear, and soak two chiles anchos and two chiles mulatos in just enough cold water to cover for an hour, then remove the seeds and rub their pulp through a sieve until only peel remains, washing it through with the soaking liquid.
• ,
• Roast a handful of shelled hazelnuts in a medium oven for ten minutes and rub off the skins in a towel before they cool.
• ,
• Sauté, in a little grape-seed or walnut or sesame oil, a small parsnip, the mushrooms, and a shallot, all chopped into a rough juliènne, until they colour. Swash the pan with the reserved mushroom soaking liquor. Add some salt, and reduce the result until nearly dry. Let it cool in a large bowl. Then gently fold in some roughly chopped parsley, the hazelnuts, lightly rolled to break them up a bit, and a few drops of Armagnac. Lastly, add enough rice to make up the stuffing, mixing just enough to incorporate it without lumps. Adjust the seasoning.
• Dry each cabbage leaf with a towel, starting with the largest, and fill and roll each one with the stuffing mixture, starting at the stem end and tucking in the sides once as you go. Set these first large rolls around the outside of an oiled rectangular casserole, and set the successively smaller ones towards the center. Try to use a vessel that allows all the rolls to fit tightly against each other in one layer.
• Mix the pepper purée with a glass of red wine, a spoonful of raw sugar, and a spoonful of lemon juice. Add a little salt, and pour over the cabbage rolls. Bake, covered, in a moderate oven for three quarters of an hour, then remove the cover, baste, and bake a quarter hour more.
• Let stand ten minutes before serving with more red wine.

These are even better the next day, heated or chilled.

Back to Recipes