Meatless Monday: Pasta with Blue Cheese and Mushrooms

I know the picture isn't the most appetising (it was taken few weeks ago late at night), and I will change it as soon as I make this dish again. But it's time for another Meatless Monday post and this simple pasta dish has been my to-go-supper ever since I was a postgraduate student in Edinburgh (read: for ages :)) My favourite mushrooms for this are fresh shiitake mushrooms - I love their slightly chewy texture. However, as these are almost impossible to source in Estonia, I've been making this with simple cultivated mushrooms (called šampinjonid in Estonian) instead.

The creamy blue cheese and mushroom sauce is actually pretty versatile. I've served it also with simple fried fish, meatballs as well as steamed vegetables.

Pasta with Blue Cheese and Mushrooms
(Sinihallitusjuustu-seenekaste)
Serves 4

400 g dried pasta

200-250 g fresh mushrooms (about half a litre/2 cups) - f.ex. shiitake, oyster, crimini, white cultivated
1 medium onion
2 Tbsp butter or oil
100-200 ml single cream
100-150 g crumbled blue cheese (Valio Aura, Dolcelatte etc)
freshly ground black pepper
finely chopped fresh parsley

Cook pasta al dente according to the instructions on the packet.

To make the sauce, clean mushrooms and chop into halves or quarters or larger pieces, depending on the size. Peel and finely chop the onion.
Put mushrooms on a heavy pan and fry gently, until the "mushroom juices" evaporate.
Add the butter or oil as well as onion and fry for a few minutes, until the onion begins to soften.
Add the cream and heat until bubbling. Now add the cheese and stir until it's melted. Season to taste, stir in the parsley.
Drain the cooked pasta, and stir in the sauce.
Serve at once.

Salmon and Mushroom Solyanka (a thick Russian soup)

If you look around Estonian foodblogs, then we all seem to feast on thick and filling Russian-style mushroom soups at the moment - Tuuli has been cooking up mushroom borscht and mushroom rassolnik, Aet has a mushroom solyanka simmering in her saucepan. We had friends over for dinner last night, and as I had got a large bowl of blanched and slightly salted wild mushrooms from K's mum yesterday morning, and made a Russian-style mushroom soup as well, but with addition of fish.

You'll get a best result if using various wild mushrooms. Gypsy mushrooms (Rozites caperatus; kitsemamplid), Russula-mushrooms, Lactarius-mushrooms - all would be perfect, but cultivated mushrooms would work as well (perhaps a mixture of white mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms for some texture?). I had mainly meaty Lactarius scrobiculatus mushrooms (võiseened/kollariisikad)*, with an odd Russula thrown in.

Check your mushroom guide for instructions (some mushrooms - like gypsy mushrooms and many Lactarius-mushrooms can be cooked fresh, some need to be blanched first.

* Note that Wiki considers this an inedible mushroom (well, "Western authors" do). It's much liked over here for its meaty texture and characteristic flavour. It does need to be thoroughly blanched and cooked first, however, and smaller mushrooms are preferred to larger ones.

Mushroom and Salmon Solyanka
Serves four to six



1 large onion, peeled and chopped
about 400 g fresh (wild) mushrooms - pre-blanched, if necessary
2 Tbsp rapeseed or olive oil
3 Tbsp concentrated tomato pureé
1 litre fish stock
4 medium-sized potatoes, peeled and chopped
300 g salmon filet, cut into 1 cm cubes
2 small pickled cucumbers, halved lengthwise and cut into slices
2 Tbsp capers
a small bunch of dill
salt
black pepper
lemon juice, to taste

Heat oil in a saucepan, add onion and mushrooms and sauté for about 5 minutes.
Stir in the tomato paste, cook for a minute or two.
Pour in the fish stock, bring to the boil. Add the potato cubes, then simmer for about 15 minutes, until the potatoes are cooked.
Add fish, capers, cucumber slices and most of the dill. Simmer for another few minutes, then remove the saucepan from the heat.
Season to taste with lemon juice, salt and pepper (solyanka needs a slightly sour note!).
Sprinkle some extra dill on top, garnish with lemon slice or wedge and serve.

Great ways with wild mushrooms: Horn of Plenty in a Mustard Vinaigrette

Horn of Plenty (also known as black chantarelle or black trompet; Craterellus cornucopioides in Latin) is a chanterelloid, or chanterelle-like, mushroom. It's very dark, almost black, making it a challenging mushroom to forage, as "it is like looking for black holes in the ground". Despite its rather unattractive appearance, it's a delicious and delicate mushroom that retains a good bite even after cooking.

I admit I didn't forage for these particular black trompet mushrooms (on the photo below) myself, but bought some at the Central Market in Tallinn. These shouldn't be too difficult to get hold of in other countries as well - I clearly remember buying some at a French deli in Edinburgh, and there are plenty of recipes using these mushrooms in both British and US food magazines (as compared to some other wild mushrooms I've mentioned over the years).

It's a quick recipe to throw together - but it needs to marinate overnight in the fridge. I loved the mustard flavour and the bite the mushrooms had. Great as a side dish to some meat, or on a slice of toasted light sourdough bread.

Black chantarelles in mustard vinaigrette
(Sinepimarinaadis torbikseened)
Source: Finnish magazine APU
Serves 4



a large punnet (about 400 g/1 litre) of fresh horn of plenty mushrooms

Mustard vinaigrette:
4 Tbsp vegetable or olive oil
3 Tbsp strong sweet mustard
1 Tbsp wine vinegar
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
0.5 tsp salt or 1 tsp sea salt flakes
0.5 tsp dried tarragon or 0.5 Tbsp fresh tarragon leaves
0.5 tsp fresh thyme leaves
freshly ground black pepper

Wipe the mushrooms clean. Place onto a hot dry frying pan and heat for about 3-5 minutes, until most of the mushroom 'juices' that emerges evaporates. Remove the mushrooms from the pan and let cool.
Combine the vinaigrette ingredients and spoon over the cool horn of plenty mushrooms. Give the mushrooms a good stir, then cover and leave to marinate overnight in the fridge.

Check out other mushroom recipes on Nami-Nami food blog.

Chantarelle bruschetta

I've blogged about serving fried chantarelles on toast two years ago, but as the chantarelle season has began here again and I've been eating fried chantarelle mushrooms several times a week, I decided to blog about them again. The summer lunch of boiled potatoes and fried chantarelles is a classic, a side "salad" of cottage cheese and fried chantarelles is another current favourite, as is this bruschetta-style small toast. Lovely with a glass of chilled white wine or beer on a summer afternoon!

I love pairing chantarelles with dillweed, but thyme or parsley would work as well, as would summer savory.

Chantarelle bruschetti
(Krõbedad saiad praetud kukeseentega)
Serves four

8 slices of white bloomer or Italian style bread
olive oil and butter, for frying

Chantarelle topping:
olive oil and butter, for frying
1 small (red) onion, finely chopped
250 g small chantarelle mushrooms
1 small garlic clove, crushed
fresh dill, finely chopped
salt and pepper

Clean the mushrooms, halve or quarter the larger ones.
Heat some butter and oil on a frying pan. Add the onion and gently sauté for 5-7 minutes, until it starts to soften. Add the mushroomsn and fry for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add the crushed garlic clove, season with salt and pepper. Finally stir in the dill.
Fry the bread slices in oil and butter until golden on both sides. Divide the mushrooms on the bread slices, sprinkle some sea salt flakes on top and serve.

Summer lunches

Chantarelles fried in butter, boiled new potatoes and fresh green leaves from your garden, dressed with some sour cream. I'll never get tired of that combination!

Georgian recipes: creamy mushrooms with spices and herbs

Another Georgian recipe on Nami-Nami. When I gave couple of Georgian cookery classes back in March, I had chosen 15 carefully selected recipes for the class. Little did I know that this humble and simple mushroom dish would prove to be such a great favourite with the participants. The mushrooms are slowly cooked in cream, alongside with some spices you wouldn't usually associate with mushroom dishes - cloves, bay leaves, cinnamon. Just before serving, some finely chopped fresh herbs are added, which lift the whole dish nicely (a bit like gremolata on osso buco, you know :))

Serve as a side dish or on a buffet spread. For best results, choose large mushrooms or use whole button mushrooms.

Creamy mushrooms with spices and herbs
(Vürtsidega hautatud šampinjonid)
serves 4

500 g mushrooms
1 Tbsp butter
0.5 tsp salt
freshly ground black pepper
200 ml whipping cream/double cream
6 whole black peppercorns
3 cloves
2 bay leaves
small cinnamon stick
large handful of fresh dill, finely chopped
large handful on fresh flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped

First, prepare the mushrooms. If they're very dirty, then rinse them quickly and dry thoroughly. Otherwise just wipe them clean with a wet kitchen paper. Cut mushrooms in halve or into thick slices.
Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the mushrooms. Season generously with salt and pepper, then sauté for a few minutes, until the mushrooms take on some colour.
Meanwhile, place the spices and bay leaves on a piece of muslin or cheesecloth:


Tie them up with a cotton string:


Place the "spice pouch" into the saucepan and push it snugly between the mushrooms. Pour of the cream. Bring to the boil, then reduce the heat and simmer on low heat for about 40-45 minutes, until the cream has reduced considerably.

Remove the "spice pouch", stir in the chopped herbs and serve.

One very knobbly Jerusalem artichoke, one very silky mushroom soup

Have you ever seen a recipe for Jerusalem artichoke/Sunchoke/Topinambur-something that begins with "Wash and peel the Jerusalem artichokes". I have. While I obviously understand the washing bit, then I'm a bit unsure about the peeling. See the specimen above? That's just one example of an artichoke I had to deal with earlier today, when preparing lunch for K's mum who came to visit her grand-daughter (who's doing splendidly, by the way:)). Have you ever seen such a knobbly Jerusalem artichoke before? It was beautiful - crisp and fresh, but had I attempted to peel it, there wouldn't have been much left. So I gave it a very good wash and scrub, and simply chopped it. And that's what I'll do from now on - I'll only buy Jerusalem artichokes with thin and beautiful skin, so I can omit that tricky "peel the artichoke" bit...

The inspiration for combining mushrooms and Jerusalem artichokes came from one Estonian monthly, but I've changed the process and proportion so considerably so there's no need to credit anything specific :)

Jerusalem artichoke and mushroom soup
(Maapirni-seenesupp)
Serves 4

250 g Jerusalem artichokes (aka topinambur aka Sunchokes)
250 g mushrooms
1 medium yellow onion
2 Tbsp butter
600 ml water
400 ml whipping/heavy cream (use single/light cream, if you prefer)
salt
freshly ground black pepper
fresh thyme, to garnish



Wash and peel (or not :)) the Jerusalem artichokes. Peel the onions. Clean the mushrooms. Chop all into small chunks.
Heat the butter in a heavy saucepan, add the artichokes, onion and mushrooms and sauté for about 5 minutes. Season with some salt.
Add hot water, bring to the boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 10-15 minutes, until the Jerusalem artichokes are softened.
Transfer into a blender and purée until smooth.
Return to the saucepan, add cream and reheat. Season with salt and pepper (and some dried porcini or chantarelle powder, if you wish), garnish with fresh thyme and serve.
Some shaved Parmesan cheese would also be nice.

Carrot and Chantarelle Quiche

Decisions, decisions.

A week or two ago I was staring at a pile of yellow chantarelle mushrooms and a bunch of young orange carrots in my fridge, trying to decide which one should become the centrepiece of our dinner table. Earthy wild mushrooms or succulent sweet carrots? Which one to take, and which one to leave? I couldn't choose (which one would you have chosen?), and combined them both in a quiche instead. The resulting carrot and chantarelle quiche could be my favourite wild mushroom tart of all times.

Here's the recipe. Do try it, if you have a chance.

Carrot and Chantarelle Quiche
(Porgandi-kukeseenepirukas)
Serves 6 to 8



Pastry:
175 g plain/all-purpose flour
0.25 tsp salt
100 g cold butter, cut into cubes
1 egg

Filling:
200 g carrots
300 g fresh chantarelle mushrooms
1 Tbsp butter
about 100 ml /half a cup/ of finely chopped fresh parsley
2 large eggs
200 ml single cream
salt
freshly ground black pepper

Combine flour and salt in a food processor. Add butter and pulse 8-10 times, until mixture is crumbly. Add the egg, pulse again until the mixture begins to come together. Press the mixture into a dough ball, flatten it into a disk. Using your fingers, press the dough to the bottom and sides of a 24 cm pie dish (alternatively, roll out on a lightly floured surface and line the pie form with the pastry.
Place to rest in the fridge for 30 minutes.
Pierce the pastry base with fork, then blind bake in a pre-heated 200 C oven for 10-15 minutes, until the base looks dry.

To make the filling, grate the carrots coarsely. Rinse the mushrooms quickly, if necessary, and drain very thoroughly. If the mushrooms are large, then cut them into smaller pieces.
Heat butter on a saucepan, add mushrooms and carrots. Season with a bit of salt and then sauté on a low heat for 5-7 minutes, until the carrots begin to soften. Remove the pan from the heat. Stir in the parsley.
Whisk eggs with cream, season with a bit of salt and with some black pepper.

Scatter the mushroom and carrot mixture on the pre-baked pastry case, then pour over the egg and cream mixture.
Cook for another 25-30 minutes, until the filling is set and the pie is light golden brown on top.

A Wild Mushroom Meatloaf Recipe for the National Meatloaf Appreciation Day

The good people over at Serious Eats: A Food Blog & Community have declared coming Friday the National Meatloaf Appreciation Day. I take the 'national' here to mean 'US American', but assume that foodblogging is a borderless activity and they accept my humble Estonian submission, too. Here's a meatloaf I made few months ago. I wanted to blog about it in Spring, I did, as it was a really tasty meatloaf. However, I used some spring mushrooms that according to all Estonian, Finnish & Swedish mushroom experts classify as 'delicious eating mushrooms' (and I've got no reason to doubt the expertise of region's mushroom guidebooks), but by Northern American mushroom guides should be avoided at any cost*. I didn't want my Northern American readers to worry about me, so I didn't post about the meatloaf back then :) However, as you can use any other spring, summer or autumn mushrooms here (morels would be especially suitable because of their visual appeal), I figure the recipe is ready for revealing on this blog :)

UPDATE 19.10.2007: Click here to read the roundup over at Serious Eats!

Spring Mushroom Meatloaf
(Hakklihavorm kevadseentega)



250 grams fresh spring mushrooms (morels are perfect)
1 Tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, minced
2 garlic cloves, minced
4 Tbsp fine breadcrumbs
100 ml single cream
500 grams minced meat (a mixture of pork & beef)
1 egg
2 tsp Herbes de Provence herb mixture
1.5 tsp salt
0.5 tsp black pepper
a bunch of fresh parsley or wild garlic**, chopped

** If you're using wild garlic, then you can reduce the amount of garlic in the recipe

Clean the mushrooms and leave whole, if they're not too large.
Heat the oil on a frying pan, add mushrooms and saute on a low heat for about 5 minutes, until some of the liquid evaporates.
Add the onion and garlic, saute for another 7-10 minutes. Put aside to cool.
Mix cream with breadcrumbs, leave to puff up for 5 minutes. Then add egg, seasoning and minced meat. Mix until combined.
Spoon half of the meat mixture into a greased small loaf tin/terrine form. Top with mushroom & onion mixture, then cover with the rest of the meat mixture.
Bake in the middle of 200 C oven for about 45 minutes, covering the meatloaf with a piece of foil half-way through the baking.
Serve hot with steamed vegetables. Cold meatloaf is excellent when thinly sliced on top of sandwich.

* The mushroom in question is Ptychoverpa bohemica alias wrinkled thimble-cap, known as kurrel in Estonian, poimukellomörsky in Finnish, Vindlad klockmurkla in Swedish, Böhmische Glocken-Morchel/Runzel-Verpel in German, сморчковая шапочка in Russian. You can see a picture here (it's a morel on the left, thimble-cap on the right).

Rye bread canapés with wild mushroom 'Caviar' and soft-boiled quail eggs

We went to one last mushroom forageing trip on Saturday, and got a large basket of mushrooms. Sadly, the season is now over - night frosts are here, and frost-bitten wild mushrooms aren't as nice. From the season's last saffron milkcaps, chantarelles and various porcini mushrooms I made these small rye bread canapés for a dinner with friends on Sunday night.

Delicious!!

Rye bread canapés with wild mushroom 'Caviar' and soft-boiled quail eggs
(Metsaseenesuupisted)



finely chopped wild mushrooms (preferably picked by yourself, then cleaned and sautéed with a little butter)
a small minced onion
some lemon juice
fresh dill
salt and pepper.
quails' eggs

Fry the rye bread slices in butter on both sides, cool a little.
Cover with mushroom 'caviar' and top with a soft-boiled (1 minute) quail egg.

Wild Mushroom Hunt: Saffron milkcaps (Lactarius deliciosus) & False Saffron Milkcaps (Lactarius deterrimus), plus a potato gratin recipe

Ten days ago we spent few hours in the forest forageing for mushrooms again. It had been raining on the previous days, yet the temperatures were nice and warm (17-18 C), so we knew there'd be lots of mushrooms. And we weren't disappointed. It was a two-stop forageing trip. After about 30 minutes in Our Secret Mushroom Forest Number One, I had barely covered the bottom of my new mushroom basket:


A mixture of Russula mushrooms on the left, one lone, but very pretty yellow Lactarius scrobiculatus amidst them, and a small pile of Saffron Milkcaps and False Saffron Milkcaps on the right.

Obviously it was time to move on. We quickly headed to Our Secret Mushroom Forest Number Two, where we played hide and seek with each other and the wild mushrooms for another 3 hours, to emerge with this beautiful bounty:



The basket contains a lot of saffron milkcaps and false saffron milkcaps, which are hidden under layers and layers of brown rufous milkcaps and white-and-pink Russula mushrooms, and a handful of gypsy mushrooms. We could have picked a lot more (there were A LOT of edible wild mushrooms), but it was starting to get darker, and the basket was already getting too heavy to carry, so we decided to head home.

Back home I had to sort through twice the amount of mushrooms on the photo - mine and K's - and do all the preparatory work for pickling, salting, freezing and so on. The saffron milkcaps and false saffron milkcaps, however, were simply fried in butter and used for this simple and delicious dish that is a perfect showcase for these beautifully orange-coloured fragrant mushrooms. I had 1.65 kg of cleaned saffron milkcaps/porgandriisikad and false saffron milkcaps/kuuseriisikad (both considered equally excellent eating mushrooms here in Estonia), so I had plenty for this vegetarian gratin, and also put some away in air-tight glass jars in the fridge, so I could make this dish again soon..

Wild Mushroom & Potato Gratin
(Kuuseriisika-kartulivorm)
Serves 6



1 kg boiled potatoes, thinly sliced
500-600 grams cleaned saffron milkcaps*
2-3 Tbsp butter
1 leek, thinly sliced
150 grated cheese
300 ml single cream
salt
black pepper
fresh herbs, finely chopped

Clean the mushrooms, cutting them into smaller pieces. Heat a heavy-bottomed frying pan on a low heat, add mushrooms and heat for a few minutes, until 'juices' evaporate. Then add butter, and fry, until mushrooms are glistening.
Butter a large oven dish, layer half of the potatoes at the bottom. Cover with fried mushrooms, then top with the rest of the potatoes. Season with salt and pepper, then sprinkle with grated cheese and finally pour the cream over.
Bake at 200 C for about 20 minutes, until the dish is hot and lovely golden brown on top.
Garnish with chopped hers and serve with some salad leaves.



* You can use other wild or cultivated mushrooms here, though they won't look and taste as delicious :)

For more mushroom ideas, check out these recipes.

Yellow chantarelle mushrooms, two ways of preparing them

Some of you may have noticed the above 'teaser photo' on my blog few days ago. Well, these tiny chantarelle mushrooms are not picked by myself. We tried, believe me. After spotting chantarelle mushrooms from Southern Estonia at Tallinn Central Market on St John's eve, we headed straight to the forest. Yet all we got was a lone porcini and a kilogram of wild strawberries (I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong:) We tried again last weekend, yet had to settle for some russula mushrooms, some wild blueberries and forest raspberries and then overcome our sadness by playing with small chicks. We did pick enough lime blossoms to comfort us through the winter, and spotted our first native orchid species, so it was quite a productive weekend after all.

Estonia is a funny place in that sense. It's small and compact (45 000 sq km), yet has such variations in climate. And mushroom seasons.. Southerners have been forageing for yellow chantarelles for weeks now, northerners like K. and I must settle for shopping at the market as for now.. We'll try again in a week or two..

Should the chantarelle season be there whereever you are, I share some of my favourite ways with those tantalising yellow mushrooms.


My very favourite way with yellow chantarelles is to fry them in some oil or butter, sprinkle with herbs and season with a pinch of salt. These are perfect for topping a slice of buttered home-baked rye bread (above), or as an accompaniment to boiled small new potatoes (you can always add some cream to fried mushrooms and let it reduce a little). Any leftovers (before sprinkling with herbs, that is) can be stored in the freezer for up to three months.



Here's another way of serving chantarelles: chantarelle-stuffed kohlrabis with a creamy blue cheese sauce. I had come across lovely kohlrabis at the market, and came up with a kohlrabi-chantarelle starter when cooking a dinner for our Norwegian guests just over a week ago (the same dinner where I served the apricot tartlets with pistachio paste, remember?) I scooped the kohlrabis and chopped the flesh, which I then simply sauteed in some oil together with chantarelles (yep, simply mushrooms and chopped kohlrabi; I didn't add any onion or garlic to the dish, although you're welcome to do that). I seasoned the mushroom mixture with salt, pepper and some chopped green onions, stuffed the pre-baked kohlrabi halves with the mixture and baked them in a 200C oven for 20 minutes. These were placed on a bed (puddle:) of creamy blue cheese sauce. I'd happily make this starter again, although I'd probably peel the kohlrabis first, as the 'skin' was too tough to be eaten.

Other chantarelle ideas @ Nami-nami:
Chantarelle Cappuccino (February 2007)
Chantarelle Sauce & Chantarelle Quiche (August 2005)

BLAST FROM THE PAST
Two years ago I wrote about a bar of Cioccolato con Peperoncino I had bought in Naples and shared a recipe for Clotilde's Chocolate & Chilli Muffins with a kick.

Wild mushroom Hunt: Morcella esculenta / Yellow morels

All my regular readers know by now that I love mushrooms, especially wild ones. And although you can easily buy various fresh wild mushrooms at the market or preserved wild mushrooms in supermarkets, I prefer forageing for my own wild mushrooms - see here and here, for example. There's something immensely gratifying and refreshing about those long and quiet walks in the forests, and the excitement about what and where and how much we'll find is fun.

In late April and early May, I came across few ladies selling morels at the Tallinn Central Market. There's nothing special about these mushrooms as such (they were on the menu in pretty much every restaurant in London back in April), although they tend to be somewhat unknown among urban fungiphiles here in Estonia. K and his mom, for example, know loads of autumnal wild mushrooms, but had never come across morels yet. They hadn't even looked for any. When in Paluküla in early May, I asked my grandma and uncle and other villagers about morel mushrooms, and they knew nothing. Yet, my recently acquired new mushroom forager's bible, 400 Eesti seent (400 Estonian mushrooms) had a picture of black morels (Morchella conica) on the cover and claimed that these spring mushrooms should be pretty common in northern Estonia.

I was convinced that if I just looked hard enough, I'd find some.

And so I did. In mid-May, K's mum - as I said, hitherto unfamiliar with morels - asked around in her village about some unfamiliar spring mushrooms, and soon enough one of the neighbours told her that there are funny-looking mushrooms growing on the grassy open field just outside their farm. She picked up the mushrooms (on the bottom left, see photo above) and brought them to us for identification. With the help of the trusty mushroom bible we easily identified them as Morcella esculenta, examples of one of the yellow morels (pallohuhtasieni in Finnish, rundtoppmurkla in Swedish, сморчок настоящий alias smortšok nastojaššii in Russian). A fortnight later we were in Paluküla area again, and K. and I headed out to the field where the mushrooms were found earlier. Nothing.. We wondered around for about half an hour, carefully staring at the open fields, trying to spot a precious morel, but without luck. On the way back to the house we decided to have one last look at a yellow-green open field surrounded by tall birch trees. And voilà - suddenly I spotted a huge yellow morel (bottom right, photo above). And another, and another and another. Four in total. Then my mushroom luck was over, but K. found four more mushrooms (- you see, there is justice and gender equality in the world, after all:) Quite surprisingly, we returned from our first ever morel forageing trip with eight succulent yellow morels (top left, photo above). We must have got a good nose for mushrooms, the pair of us :)

The mushrooms? Well, if you've got something so delicious, you don't want to over-handle them. We cleaned and sliced them, fried in butter with some salt and pepper and a dash of cream, and ate them with some fried garlic scapes and salad leaves (top right, photo above). Mmmmmm.

I've got a feeling that it'll be a good year for wild mushrooms...

PS You can read more about identifying morel mushrooms over at MushroomExpert.com. Only pick mushrooms that you are certain about!!!