Field Guide to Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic

Mushrooms in the Kitchen

After you get your edible mushrooms home, you have to get them ready for cooking or preserving. They will probably need cleaning, but if you have done some preliminary work before you put them in your collecting basket, your job will be much easier in the kitchen. At this point, beginning mushroomers often dump their collection of edibles in a pan of water for fast cleaning. Gilled mushrooms treated this way take up and retain a large amount of water in their structure. This may be acceptable if you plan to use your mushrooms in soups, stews, or other dishes with high water content. But if you use these waterlogged mushrooms to make drier dishes, such as sautés, you will have to contend with excess moisture in the pan. Simply wiping the caps and stems with a moist cloth or paper napkin is a better way to clean mushrooms. To remove debris from the undersides, careful brushing will often do the job. Some mushroomers pucker their lips and briskly blow on the gills to dislodge the material. You can find mushroom recipes everywhere. Many cookbooks have recipes for supermarket mushrooms. You can substitute wild mushrooms in many of these recipes, if you are familiar with the cooking qualities of different species. This awareness comes from experience . To know the cooking potential of a mushroom, many people simply sauté it in butter. By preparing it in this way, you get an idea of the basic flavor and texture to guide you in using the mushroom in more elaborate recipes. Many field guides include suggestions and recipes for cooking individual species. Instead of eating your mushrooms fresh, you can preserve them for future meals. Most vegetable preserving methods will work well. Freezing is a good choice if you first blanch the mushrooms in hot water. Many people prefer to sauté them first, in butter or oil, before packaging them for the freezer. In times past, mushroomers strung their finds like beads to dry over the kitchen stove. Now you can use electric Mushrooms in the Kitchen 224 Wild Mushrooms of Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic food dryers that hold loads of sliced mushrooms and dehydrate them quickly. The flavor of certain edible mushroom species improves from drying. Chemical reactions in the dehydration process intensify flavors and bring out odors that were unnoticeable in the mushrooms’ fresh state. Many mushroomers like to dry morels (Morchella species ) and black trumpets (Craterellus fallax) instead of eating them fresh for this reason. I know several chefs who always have jars of these dried mushrooms on their kitchen shelves. Cooking mushrooms in your kitchen is easy and flexible, but there are other ways to do it. A chef friend carries a little pan, matches, a small bottle of oil, and a packet of herbs and spices when he goes mushrooming in the woods. If he finds edible species, he gathers small pieces of dry wood and builds a fire. While waiting for the fire to build up, he cleans his collection with a paper napkin and a small brush. Then he cooks his mushrooms on the spot. His wild dishes are always delicious and unusual. It’s fun to go mushrooming with him. Long ago, I learned that it’s good to have friends who like to cook mushrooms. You can spend a lot of time reading your guidebooks , but you will only be able to identify many species when you get out of the house and study mushrooms growing in their natural environment. Only then will you gain the confidence to collect wild mushrooms and prepare your own mouthwatering dishes. For examples of some of the ways you can prepare wild mushrooms, I offer this selection of recipes. Sautéed Chicken Breast with Black Trumpets (Craterellus fallax or C. cornucopioides) by Anne Quinn Corr 4 boneless and skinless chicken breasts (chicken cutlets) 1/4 cup flour salt and pepper to taste 3 tablespoons clarified butter, divided 2 cups black trumpets 1/4 cup white wine 1 1/2 cups chicken stock several sprigs fresh thyme 225 Mushrooms in the Kitchen 1 tablespoon soft butter minced parsley for garnish Pound out the cutlets so they will cook evenly. Combine the flour and salt and pepper in a cake pan and dredge each cutlet in the mixture, shaking off the excess. Heat 2 tablespoons of the clarified butter in a pan, and when it is...