You are just back from a very productive trip to the woods with baskets and baskets of prime fresh morels (lucky you!). You eat morels for dinner. You have morels with scrambled eggs for breakfast. You make homemade morel paté to have with cheese and bread for lunch. Morels for dinner again. You love these fresh morels, but it is time to decide that “enough is enough, I must preserve some of these delectable morel morsels for later use”.

There are many ways that various mushrooms can be preserved: canned, dried, frozen, pickled, and salted. Morels preserve best by drying or freezing.

Drying morels is the most popular method of preserving, and is my favorite. Morels, and any other mushrooms you preserve by dehydration, must be dried fast enough to prevent spoilage, but not so hot as to cook the fungus. The best way to dry morels is to use a commercial or homemade food dehydrator with the temperature set at 110 F (43 C). The morels can be placed into the dehydrator whole, but with many commercial dehydrators the drying screens are too close together and the morels need to be cut. I dry the small morels whole and cut the larger ones longitudinally (of course the largest never reach the drier, they get stuffed and eaten fresh!). Morels can also be dried by stringing them and placing them in a warm room with good air circulation. Some people dry morels in a warm oven with the door ajar, but if the temperature gets to 120 F or higher the flavor of the morels will deteriorate. However you dry your morels, make sure the finished product is crisp enough to be easily broken and pack them immediately into airtight containers.

Freezing morels, although a bit more work, is even simpler since you do not have to worry about the speed of drying or getting your morels sufficiently dehydrated. Just sauté the morels (whole, sliced, or chopped at your discretion) in butter or olive oil until done and all the water has evaporated. Pack them in containers small enough for a single meal and freeze. Some people have experimented with freezing morels without cooking, but my experience is that the result is a mass ruined morels!

Using frozen morels is simplicity itself. Just add the thawed morels into the dish near the end of its cooking cycle. In fact, in many moist dishes (soups, for example) the frozen morels can be added directly to the dish without thawing. Dried morels need to be reconstituted first by soaking them in warm to hot liquid (water or stock) until they are soft. And remember, most of the morel flavor is in the soaking liquid.

Although the flavor of frozen morels may be closer to fresh morels, the dried ones have a more intense flavor that is better than fresh in many sauces. This chicken and morel dish is designed to use this flavor intensity of the dried morels, but if you cannot wait to try it, by all means substitute fresh morels.

Chicken Stuffed with Hazelnut Butter
with Morel and Cilantro Cream Sauce

• 6 chicken thighs
• 12-18 dried morels
• 2 cups chicken stock
• 1/2 cup chopped cilantro
• 1/4 cup chopped shallots
• 1/2 cup cream
• olive oil 1/2 cup hazelnut butter
• 1/2 cup white wine
• salt to taste

Heat the chicken stock and soak the morels for 20 minutes. Remove the morels from the soaking liquid and strain if necessary.

Skin and bone the chicken thighs. Pound them to one-half of their original thickness. Spread the hazelnut butter on the flattened thighs and roll them into logs. Secure with a toothpick if needed. Brown the thighs in olive oil, turning when necessary. When brown add 1/2 cup white wine, cover the pan, and braise until the chicken is just done. Do not overcook or the chicken will be tough and dry.

While the chicken is braising, saute the chopped shallots in 2 T olive oil until done. Add the chicken stock and simmer for 10 minutes. Puree the stock and shallots in a blender or food processor. Return the sauce to the pan, add the morels and reduce liquid to 1/2 cup. During the last minute of the reduction, add the finely chopped cilantro. Add the cream and reduce the sauce to the desired consistency. Serve the sauce over the rolled chicken thighs with 2-3 morels per thigh.

Serving Suggestion: Accompany this dish with wild rice, steamed asparagus and a good Sauvignon Blanc.

Note: Hazelnut butter is the best choice for this dish, but it can be very hard to find in the market. You can make your own in a food processor by grinding hazelnuts into a butter. You can also substitute almond butter, which is more readily available.

(A version of this was originally published in the late 1980′s in the Mycena News, the newsletter of the Mycological Society of San Francisco)

(Lots more about mushrooms can be found at MykoWeb.com)

Recipe:

• 3 eggs
• 3 T cream
• chopped morels
• asparagus, sliced
• grated cheese
• butter
• salt & pepper

Sauté the morels in butter until soft. Add the asparagus and cook until done. Salt this mixture to taste. There should be a slight caramelization of the morels when done. Remove from heat.

Beat your eggs lightly with the cream, salt & pepper to taste. Cook your omelet adding the morel and asparagus mixture, plus the cheese while the eggs are still a little runny…don’t overcook the omelet!!! I used a good quality Cotija, but a Parmigiano-Reggiano or Pecorino would be great also. Don’t use too much cheese, the morels and asparagus are the stars here.

The morels and asparagus are a great spring combination…you will love this omelet! Morels and fresh fava beans are also a classic combination and make great omelets and many other dishes.

(Lots more about mushrooms can be found at MykoWeb.com)

Come, gentle Spring! Ethereal mildness, come.—James Thomson

The poet James Thomson was undoubtedly urging on spring as a relief to the harsh Scottish winters, but as mycophagists we wait impatiently for spring because we know that spring brings morels. There is nothing finer than a walk into the spring woods with its clean air, green grass, and beautiful wildflowers. Nothing finer except a walk out of the woods with your basket laden with morels!

Because of their sporadic appearance in the Bay Area, morel collecting for us usually means a trip to the Sierras. Look for morels in areas where the night temperature has generally risen above freezing and where there is still some moisture left in the ground. But especially look for morels in areas affected by a burn the previous year. Morels have long been so sought after and have such an affinity for burned areas that the practice of slashing and burning to produce a morel crop the next year was banned by royal decree in medieval Germany.

Morels are at their best when firm and fresh. Specimens that can be cleaned with a brush are preferable to those that have to be washed since washing may reduce the intensity of the morel flavor. But in reality most morels need washing…just spin them dry in your salad spinner after the wash. If you haven’t tried morels before, cook them simply the first time–sauteed slowly in butter with a little cream added at the end and served on toast will allow you to experience the essence of the nutty, refined morel flavor. Many edible fungi have a spice or herb that seems the consummate culinary accompaniment. Many believe that marjoram is the perfect complement for porcini and freshly grated nutmeg is perfect with chanterelles. For morels, I have a special fondness for cardamon followed by tarragon and I think you will find the combination interesting in this stuffed morel dish.

Morels Stuffed with Lamb

• 1 pound ground lamb
• large fresh morels (quantity depends on size)
• 4 T fresh tarragon, chopped
• 1/4 t ground cardamon
• 3 clove garlic, crushed
• 1 egg
• 3 T cracker crumbs

Try to select morels that are about the same size so this dish will cook evenly. Clean the morels and slice longitudinally (the number of morels required varies from 6-20 depending on size). Put the remaining ingredients into a bowl and mix thoroughly. Stuff each half morel with the lamb mixture. Place the morels in a glass baking dish and bake in a 350 oven for 25-35 minutes or until the meat mixture is barely done.

Stuffed in smaller morels this dish is a delicious appetizer, larger stuffed morels make an excellent main dish served with a rice and wild rice pilaf and a green vegetable. Accompany the meal with a good red wine.

(A version of this was originally published in the late 1980′s in the Mycena News, the newsletter of the Mycological Society of San Francisco)

(Lots more about mushrooms can be found at MykoWeb.com)