Creamy Polenta with Wild Mushrooms

THE BLACK TRUMPET (Craterellus sp.) is one my favorite wild mushrooms for the table. Like its cousins in the chanterelle family, it's earthy with a touch of fruity sweetness. On the West Coast, most pickers look for them in the coastal hills of northern California and southern Oregon, where they hide among the leaf litter of forests dominated by Douglas fir, tanoak, and madrone (with a smattering of decayed redwood for good measure). But they can be found elsewhere...

One of the great pleasures of mushroom hunting is sleuthing out the many clues that lead to a full basket. The black trumpet is one of those varieties that requires putting on your detective cap and paying serious attention to the landscape. Cracking the case results in a righteous dinner.

Creamy Polenta with Wild Mushrooms

This recipe is adapted from a New York Times recipe by Sam Sifton, who rightly points out that soy sauce and butter make a heavenly combination, particularly in service to fungi, because of the massive umami factor. 

Many home cooks view polenta with trepidation. It doesn't follow directions! Don't be afraid. Polenta is easy and forgiving, even if temperamental—and a perfect vehicle for wild mushrooms. Yes, it rarely cooks the same way twice, varying by brand, weather, elevation, and seemingly by whim. Just add more liquid if necessary and adjust seasoning, cheese, and butter to taste.

This makes a side dish for two. I used a mixture of golden chanterelles and black trumpets.

For polenta:

1 cup water (plus more as it cooks)

1/2 cup milk

1/2 cup polenta

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp butter

Parmesan cheese, grated (optional)

For mushrooms:

1/4 lb (or more) wild mushrooms, roughly cut into pieces

2 tbsp butter, divided

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tbsp porcini powder*, rehydrated with 1/2 cup hot water

1 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp heavy cream

1 tsp olive oil

Salt and pepper

* You can pulverize a store-bought package of dried porcini into powder with a spice grinder. I make jars of the stuff from my #3 mature king boletes to use with rubs and in sauces, stews, and soups. No porcini? Substitute with chicken or vegetable stock.

1. Over medium-high heat, bring water and milk to simmer in a medium-sized sauce pan or pot. Slowly add polenta while whisking to prevent clumping. Season with salt and continue to whisk for a minute or two. Turn heat to low and cook for about 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more water as necessary to maintain creaminess.

2. Meanwhile, in a small pan sauté garlic and mushrooms in a tablespoon of butter over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Cook mushrooms until they release their water and then cook off liquid, allowing mushrooms to brown slightly; this might take several minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Add 1/2 cup porcini stock to mushrooms. Reduce by half and turn heat to low. Add a splash each of soy sauce and cream and a drizzle of olive oil. Stir together and allow to thicken. Keep warm in pan over low heat while waiting for polenta to cook. If sauce becomes too thick, add another splash of water, cream, or stock. Just before plating, melt one more tablespoon of butter into mushroom sauce and stir.

4. When polenta is thoroughly cooked and creamy, add butter and cheese (and more liquid if necessary). Adjust seasoning. Serve in a bowl and spoon mushrooms and sauce on top.

Serves 2 as a side dish.

Stir-fried Oyster Mushrooms with Chicken

West Coast woods from NorCal to BC are loaded with oyster mushrooms right now—and it's nice to see the excitement they're stirring in foraging communities. Lately I've been seeing photos of oysters all over online message boards and myco groups. Morels have traditionally commanded most of the vernal ink among mycophagists, but for a majority of us west of the Cascades the oyster is really the local fungus of springtime.

I start looking for oysters (Pleurotus sp.) in lowland forests as soon as the temperature begins to warm and a few days after the first good rains. Some years I find them as early as late February though April is more typical. They'll keep fruiting throughout the spring and sometimes well into summer if regular rain continues, and then again in the fall.

The saprophytic oyster mushrooms in the Northwest will usually be found in association with dead red alder or cottonwood. They look like clam shells growing off the sides of standing snags or fallen trees. Fresh specimens are creamy white, with hues of pink or tan. They have gills and stems that are off-center.

While you can buy farmed oysters at the market, I find the wild variety to be more flavorful, and I use them in all kinds of dishes from around the world, east and west. My go-to recipe of recent years has been a quick, delicate Chinese stir-fry that will appeal to those who prefer a less spicy Cantonese style, which allows the oysters to really shine. If you're vegetarian, skip the chicken or swap in tofu.

3 tbsp peanut oil
3/4 lb oyster mushrooms, cut into half-dollar pieces
3/4 lb chicken breast, thinly sliced into a similar size as mushrooms
4 green onions, cut into 2-inch pieces
3 large cloves garlic, thinly sliced
1 large thumb-sized piece of ginger, thinly sliced
salt and white pepper, to taste

Marinade
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Shaoxing wine
1 tsp potato starch

Sauce
3 tbsp chicken stock
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1/2 tsp potato starch

1. Combine sliced chicken in a bowl with marinade ingredients, stir, and set aside. Whisk together sauce ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.

2. In a wok over medium heat, sauté oyster mushrooms in 1 tbsp oil, stirring occasionally. Remove to a bowl when slightly browned.

3. Heat 2 tbsp oil in wok over high heat and add marinated chicken. When the chicken is partly cooked but still pinkish, add garlic, ginger, and green onion. Cook together, stirring, for 30 seconds until aromatic before returning oyster mushrooms to wok. Continue to cook together another minute or so until chicken is barely cooked through.

4. Pour in sauce, stir to coat, and reduce heat. Season to taste and serve immediately with rice.

Serves 2

Matsutake Dobin Mushi

Last year my friend Taichi Kitamura, chef/owner of Sushi Kappo Tamura in Seattle, gave me a set of two dobin mushi teapots he'd recently picked up in Japan, where "dobin" means teapot and "mushi" is steamed. 

These ceramic teapots are used to serve Matsutake Dobin Mushi, a favorite seasonal dish in Japan that relies on thinly sliced matsutake mushrooms to flavor a subtle broth as they steam in the pot. Other ingredients such as small pieces of chicken, fish, or shrimp along with a few thin slices of mild greens (e.g., yu choy, baby bok choy, or spinach) are also added. The teapot is served with a small upside-down cup fitted to the lid, with half a yuzu on top. The steaming broth is then poured into the cup with a squeeze of the citrus and sipped like tea, while the ingredients in the teapot are eaten with chopsticks. It's a ritualistic meal that evokes memories of brisk walks in the autumn woods as the leaves turn colors and fall to the ground.

You may see sources online suggesting the substitution of matsutake with shiitake, oyster, or cremini mushrooms. Certainly you can do that—but you won't be experiencing the ethereal and aromatic treat that only matsutke can provide and which the Japanese call "autumn aroma." As for the broth, think umami. I asked Taichi for some tips. He makes a kombu dashi and adds manila clams and black cod bones. Shrimp shells work, too. Avoid aromatics such as onion, carrot, and celery, he advised, because they will over-power the mushroom. Season the broth with sake, soy sauce, and sea salt. Lastly, it's important to allow the matsutake slices to steep in the broth and impart their hints of cinnamon, spice, and fungus. Taichi recommends gently warming the teapots with all their ingredients in a bamboo steamer rather than cooking directly over flame.

Matsutake mushrooms are pungent, with meaty texture—a little goes a long way. If you're buying matsutake in the market you'll be spending a frightening amount per pound (they were $70/lb at my local Japanese grocer the other day), but luckily you don't need a lot, so just get a small button to serve two. And if you can forage them yourself in the forest, all the better. Mine came from a patch not far from Seattle, where I found several pounds of prime buttons pushing up through the moss beneath a Douglas fir. At the time I was hunting chanterelles, but I'll remember this surprise of a spot and return to it next year.

Matsutake Dobin Mushi

Serves 2

2 cups kombu dashi (see below) 20 grams kombu 4 manila clams 4 shrimp, peeled (reserve shells) 1 tbsp sake 1/2 tsp soy 1/4 tsp salt 1 small to medium matsutake button, thinly sliced 6 bite-sized, thin-sliced pieces chicken breast (or white fish fillet such as cod, rockfish, halibut) 2 baby bok choy (or other mild green), halved 1 yuzu, halved (or 2 lime wedges) 1. Make kombu dashi ahead. Soak 20 grams of kombu (dried kelp) in a pot with 4 1/2 cups cold water for several hours or overnight. Bring nearly to boil before removing kombu with tongs. Boiling will turn the dashi bitter. Refrigerate dashi or continue to next step. 2. Heat 2 cups of kombu dashi in a pot with clams and shrimp shells. When the clams have opened, remove all shells. Season broth with sake, soy sauce, and sea salt. Simmer until alcohol has cooked off. 3. Divide equal portions of sliced matsutake, greens, shrimp, and chicken into dobin mushi pots, then add hot broth. Replace lids and heat teapots in a bamboo steamer over a kettle of boiling water for several minutes. (You can also steam in a wok with a rack and lid.) This gentle steaming allows the matsutake to fully infuse the broth while the shrimp, chicken, and greens poach. 4. Serve Dobin Mushi with a half of yuzu or lime wedge placed on top of each inverted cup. After removing the teapot lid, inhale the autumn aroma. Winter is on its way.

Oregon Truffle Festival

Now entering its 14th year, the non-profit Oregon Truffle Festival's mission is to educate the public about native-grown truffles in the Willamette Valley. With events and workshops tailored to truffle cultivators, foragers (and their dogs!), chefs, epicures, and the merely curious, the festival celebrates a burgeoning culinary industry.

Truffles have been enjoyed for centuries in Europe, but it is only in the last decade or so that North American truffles have begun to appear on the gastronomic radar, including those wild black and white truffles endemic to the Pacific Northwest as well as European varieties such as the black Périgord that are now cultivated here.

If you're intrigued by this newly emerging homegrown truffle culture, consider joining me January 25-27 for the festival's Urban Forager Package, an action-packed crash course that introduces food lovers to the fungi's ineffable pleasures. The package includes an Italian-inspired Friday evening at Marché Provisions in downtown Eugene for bites and drinks; a Saturday excursion (hosted by me) with stops at Mountain Rose Herbs, J. Scott Cellars, and the 5th Street Market (for more truffle bites and pairings), followed by the multi-course Grand Truffle Dinner that night; and a Sunday visit to the Truffle Marketplace for tastings, cooking demos, and talks.

Bottom line: You don't have to travel all the way to France or Italy to experience the charms of truffle culture.

Honey Mushrooms

It's time to tackle the honey mushroom. I haven't written about it before because it's not among my favorites in the Kingdom of Fungi, at least from an edibility standpoint, but in a season such as this, when the mushroom gods are being parsimonious with their gifts, the time is right to make use of this abundant species.

The parasitic honey fungus is famous for being the largest organism on the planet. In the Blue Mountains of Oregon, a single individual has been estimated at covering more than three square miles of Malheur National Forest and is killing the fir trees there.

Science once recognized the honey mushroom as Armillaria mellea. We now know it's a complex of similar looking species. This was another reason why I usually passed on the honey; it was rumored among mushroom hunters that not all species within the complex were choice for the table, and that some might not be edible at all. What has become clear in more recent years is that all honey mushrooms, no matter what species, should be fully cooked before serving and that some people, for reasons not entirely understood, will experience what is politely called gastric distress regardless of careful preparation.

Just the same, people all over the world eat and enjoy honey mushrooms, which are so named for their coloration, not their taste.

For more information about identification, check out this video, which contrasts the honey mushroom with a poisonous semi-lookalike, the deadly galerina. I usually find honeys in large clusters on dead or dying trees in the fall, from sea level to sub-alpine woods. They can vary significantly in appearance as they age, and will develop from small buttons into broad open caps. I look for young ones with veils covering the gills and I trim away the fibrous stems. Where I live, I don't have to go far for honeys. They grow in Seattle parks and along trails in the Cascade foothills just outside the city.

In my opinion, honey mushrooms are a lot like supermarket buttons in both taste and texture. They can be mucilaginous—another reason to cook them amply—though some recipes for soups and stews make use of this characteristic as a thickening agent.

I usually prepare them simply. The sautéed mushrooms pictured above were cooked in canola oil over medium heat for several minutes before I lowered the heat and added butter and garlic. After a few more minutes on low, I stirred in some chopped parsley and served. Kinda like garlic bread for the carb-free set.

There are plenty other ways to prepare honey mushrooms. Remember to try just a small portion the first time you eat them, in case you're one of those who can't tolerate this mushroom.

Matsutake Sukiyaki Hotpot

I GOT A CALL from Doug (of The Mushroom Hunters) the other day. He's bivouacked somewhere down in Humboldt or Mendocino County picking blacks and hogs. Meanwhile, Norcal friends of mine have been heckling me with texts and photos of their matsutake hauls of late.

Matsutake was still on sale (for outrageous prices) at Uwajimaya in Seattle last time I looked, so if you don't live in California you might be able to make this dish with fresh store-bought mushrooms. Me, I had some just before the holiday season, which occasions this post, and probably won't enjoy it again until next fall.

***

AS A CHILD of the seventies, I'm well acquainted with regrettable fads, from pet rocks to Farrah Fawcett haircuts.

Fondu is not among them.

Our family loved fondu, one of many food crazes during that unfairly maligned decade, and we went through a few different fondu cooking sets just as Star Wars was beginning its long run. Invariably the slender forks got lost or broken, and anything made of wood ended up scorched by the little Sterno tins. But under the Christmas tree each year there would be a fresh new set to put to work.

Forget the Euro-Swiss cheese thing. We all preferred meat fondu, cooked in a pot of boiling oil that could have easily sent one of us kids to the ER with a misplaced elbow, not that anyone worried about stuff like that back then. My dad would bring home good beef from the butcher, pre-cut into small cubes; Mom kept the cupboard stocked with the few sauces available at the time, most of them with a Kikkoman label.


I WAS REMINDED of these good times around the fondu pot after spending an evening with my friend Taichi Kitamura recently at his top-notch Japanese restaurant, Sushi Kappo Tamura, devouring Sukiyaki Hotpot.

It was the tail-end of matsutake mushroom season in the Pacific Northwest and Taichi invited me to partake in a traditional preparation. With a dozen of us at the table, he had three bubbling hotpots along with platters overflowing with matsutake mushrooms, thinly sliced rib-eye and short rib, Napa cabbage, tofu, and pre-cooked cellophane noodles.

Taichi doesn't use beef stock in his broth, or any stock for that matter, and I soon discovered that a simple mixture of water, sake, and soy sauce (sweetened with sugar) becomes increasingly profound as more ingredients, especially fresh slivers of matsutake buttons and premium cuts of beef, are cooked in it over the course of the evening.

The matsutake gives the broth its signature taste that is reminiscent of cinnamon and spice yet earthy and, for lack of a better word, fungaly. Autumn aroma is how the Japanese describe this tantalizing flavor. By the end, all the guests were clamoring for to-go containers so they could take home the rich dregs of this amazing broth mixed with a little rice.

Now I'm shopping for a fondu set—or maybe even a traditional Japanese or Korean hotpot. Regular readers will know that I've posted a Matsutake Sukiyaki recipe in the past, but Taichi has convinced me that it can be so much simpler and just as delicious. From now on I won't be sautéing any of the sukiyaki ingredients; it's just as tasty (even more so) to cook all the ingredients right in the pot, while sitting around the table with friends and family just like the old fondu days.

This same method is easily accomplished in the woods, by the way, after a long day of mushroom hunting, which puts it on an even higher level in my book.

3 cups water
1 cup soy sauce
1 cup sake
1/3 cup sugar (or more, to taste; Taichi will use as much as 3/4 cup)
3 - 4 (or more) matsutake buttons, thinly sliced
1 lb beef, thinly sliced (rib-eye, short rib, etc.)
1 lb cellophane noodles, pre-cooked
1/2 small Napa cabbage, sliced into wide ribbons
1 package tofu, cubed
1 small onion, sliced into half-moons (optional)
rice to accompany

1. Make rice and prepare raw hotpot ingredients: arrange beef on a platter, cube tofu, slice matsutake mushrooms and cabbage, and boil noodles until al dente before rinsing with cold tap water.

2. In a pot mix together water, sake, soy sauce, and sugar. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat slightly. Allow some of the sake alcohol to burn off before adding matsutake. Cook matsutake at a low boil or high simmer for a few minutes until its flavor has infused the broth, then begin adding raw ingredients in small portions. Add noodles last, just before ladling into bowls and serving with rice. Repeat. And repeat again.

Serves 4.

Candy Cap Custard

This winter, mushroom hunters in California are crying Hallelujah! Unless they happen to live below Oroville Dam...

The Golden State hasn't seen rain like this in several years, and the fungi have responded in kind. But with so many storms rolling in off the Pacific, the mushroom patches have also taken a beating, so timing is still everything.

I was able to thread the needle earlier this winter, sneaking into Santa Cruz for a week of sunshine right after a major pummeling that washed out roads near where I was staying in the hills. The weather turned again just as I was leaving.

My destination was the Santa Cruz Fungus Fair, one of the great myco events on the West Coast, but I also managed to get into nearby woods to pick a year-plus supply of candy caps.

I've written about candy caps before. It's a complex of species in the milk cap genus, Lactarius. Candy caps are noteworthy for smelling intensely of maple syrup once dried, effectively putting mushrooms on the dessert menu. The two species of candy cap I encountered on this trip were L. rubidus and L. rufulus. The latter grows with oaks and is quite mild, but the former—if dehydrated at a low temperature (I think we set our dryer to 95 degrees)—is wonderfully fragrant. We found hundreds of them growing among a stand of old Monterrey pines.

Though candy cap cookies are my usual go-to recipe, the first thing I made when I got home with my bounty was an egg custard, adapting a very simple recipe that I typically make with huckleberries. The candy caps gave this creamy and satisfying dessert a pungent aroma of maple syrup, which paired well with the huckleberries on top.

1 small handful dried candy caps
1 cup evaporated milk
1 cup water
4 egg yolks
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup huckleberries
fresh nutmeg or cinnamon, grated to taste

1. Pulverize dried candy caps to dust in a spice grinder or food processor. Pass through wire mesh sieve to remove any large pieces. Cover mushroom dust with 1 cup warm water and set aside for 20 minutes.

2. Pre-heat over to 325 degrees. Combine milk and mushroom water in a small saucepan and bring to boil. Remove from heat.

3. Mix egg yolks, sugar, salt, and vanilla together in a bowl.

4. Slowly whisk in hot milk-water mixture until frothy. Pour into 4 ramekins.

5. Place ramekins in an oven-proof dish or tray filled with warm water. Bake for 40 minutes. Carefully place a small handful of huckleberries atop each custard and bake another 10 minutes. Test one for doneness with a knife tip; if it comes away clean, the custard is done. Sprinkle with fresh nutmeg or cinnamon. Serve hot or cold.

Wild Mushroom Bread Pudding

I've been cooped up this fall, finishing a new book. (More on that later.) Meanwhile I get the usual texts and emails from friends in the patch, scoring hauls of chanterelles and porcini, sparassis and matsi. So it was a relief to finally get out the other day.

Hopeful forecasts for a good ski season seem to have some merit. Above 1,500 feet the thermometer was in the low 30's, and above 4,000 feet there was a nice dusting of snow. I went up to some of my higher elevation patches anyway just for a look—and it didn't take long to see that many of the high country mushrooms are done for the year in the North Cascades, although matsutake continue to plug along. But down around 2,000 feet I found kings, hedgehogs, chanterelles, more matsi, and lots of gypsies. So I have not gone without my annual infusion of Matsutake Sukiyaki.

As for the others, I chopped them up for a bread pudding served with a roast chicken. Normally I make a typical stuffing for the bird, but this totally un-fussy bread pudding is now my go-to. It really shines with wild mushrooms.

4 - 6 cups stale country bread, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 tbsp butter, divided (plus more if needed)
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
1 lb wild mushrooms (e.g., chanterelles, porcini, hedgehogs, etc.), rough cut
3 large eggs
2 cups half and half
1 heaping cup grated Gruyère cheese
handful parsley, chopped
salt and pepper, to taste

1. In a large skillet, sauté onions in 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat until caramelized. Add more butter if necessary and reduce heat so that onions are nicely browned and not burned. Remove from pan.

2. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

3. In same pan, melt another 2 tablespoons of butter over medium heat and sauté mushrooms. Cook off any liquid released by mushrooms and season with salt and pepper. Remove from pan.

4. Beat eggs in a large bowl with half and half. Mix in grated cheese and parsley. Season with salt and pepper, to taste. Add bread, onions, mushrooms, and stir together.

5. Grease an 8-inch baking dish and dollop in bread pudding. Cover and bake for 20 minutes. Remove lid and bake another 20 minutes, until pudding begins to brown on top and is cooked through.

James Beard Award Nomination

I'm happy to report that my article "Into the Woods" for EatingWell magazine has been nominated for a 2016 James Beard Journalism Award.

The article follows Jeremy Faber, of Seattle's Foraged and Found Edibles, on a mushroom hunting expedition in the Pacific Northwest wilderness. Cathy Whims, chef/owner of Nostrana in Portland, OR, supplied the recipes.

For more on the secretive world and hidden economy of wild mushroom hunting, see my book, The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America.

Saffron Milk Caps

The saffron milk cap is a wild mushroom that most pot hunters leave to the Russians. That's too bad because it's tasty and abundant.

Saffrons, or ryzhiki in Russia, are actually a complex of species in the Lactarius genus, and much DNA work needs to be done to separate the North American varieties. They're called milk caps for a latex they exude when cut. Some milk caps bleed white, some yellow, others red or orange.

Eastern Europeans have admired saffron milk caps for eons. I see Russians and Ukrainians in the woods outside Seattle carrying baskets overflowing with saffrons while their competition from other parts of the world is only too happy to leave the milk caps in the duff and fill their own buckets with matsutake or hedgehogs.

Saffrons bleed red or orange. The two most common saffrons for the table are Lactarius rubrilacteus and L. deliciosus (again, these taxonomic names are likely to change with future genetic testing). Both will bruise a greenish color (see photo above), which vanishes with cooking. I found the saffrons pictured here at about 4,000 feet in the North Cascades on the edge of an old-growth forest of mostly hemlock amidst a few patches of snow on the ground. They bled a reddish-orange color (see photo below right), though not profusely, and the green bruising was minimal. Saffrons generally have zonate caps (concentric bands in varying hues of orange, pink, red, or green) but these rings were very subtle in my specimens. As you can see, they also had hollow or partially hollow stems.

Perhaps one of the reasons many pot hunters don't eat saffrons is the difficulty of identifying to species. With most mushrooms that's a no-no—and I'm still not sure exactly what species the pictured saffrons are. Jeremy Faber of Foraged and Found Edibles confirmed that he sells this species as a saffron milk cap and that, if not L. rubrilacteus, it's a close relative. He also said that saffrons will bleed less during heavy rains.

Saffron milk caps are versatile in the kitchen. My pal Hank Shaw, in a nod to Eastern European foodways, preserves them in salt. Sautéed, saffrons keep their salmon color and firm, almost crunchy texture.  Some mycophagists have complained of graininess, but prolonged cooking eliminates this. The key to using saffrons is taking care of them in the field and then using quickly at home. These mature milk caps pictured, though completely bug-free, were more suitable for the pan than pickling due to their large size. The green bruising isn't appetizing, but as I said, it disappears with cooking.

Recently I came across a mushroom cookbook with some excellent non-cheffy recipes for the home cook, The Edible Mushroom Book. The recipe that follows is adapted from that with a few tweaks.

Pan-fried Chicken with Saffron Milk Cap Ragout

3 - 4 chicken thighs, skin on
1/2 lb saffron milk caps, cut up
2 shallots, diced
1 - 2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp butter
1 cup white wine
1 cup chicken stock
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 - 3 fresh sprigs fresh thyme
salt and pepper

1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Pat dry chicken and season with salt and pepper. In a medium saucepan, heat oil over medium-high and pan-fry, skin side first, until golden, a few minutes on each side. Remove to an oven-proof dish and continue cooking in oven until juices run clear, about 20 minutes.

2. In same saucepan, melt butter and sauté diced shallots until soft and translucent. Add mushrooms, thyme, and crushed garlic and continue cooking together a few minutes. Season with salt and pepper.

3. Deglaze pan with white wine and reduce by half. Add stock and heavy cream and reduce until desired consistency. Spoon mushroom sauce on plates and then place chicken atop sauce.

Serves 2

Wild Mushroom Strudel

A couple weekends ago, while attending the Sunshine Coast Mushroom Festival in British Columbia, I got a bite of a Wild Mushroom Strudel and immediately vowed to make it at home.

First, though, I had to find the mushrooms. So I visited a regular patch on my way to Yakima to speak to the Yakima Valley Mushroom Society. It's a patch frequented by Eastern Europeans, especially Ukrainians, who pick a variety of different Leccinums including what they call "redcaps" (possibly Leccinum aurantiecum, though we're likely to see taxonomic changes in North America with further DNA testing). They leave all the matsutake, which happily went into my bucket, along with several gypsy mushrooms and a fat porcino of more than a pound that remarkably perched in the duff unscathed. When I got home, the gypsies and king bolete went into the strudel.

I've never made a strudel before. For this reason I kept things simple and bought frozen puff pastry from the store. You're welcome to make your own. A couple notes: braiding the puff pastry makes for an attractive presentation and allows air to escape through the vents so that the strudel doesn't blow up into a monstrosity. Dried porcini, though not mandatory, gives the strudel a deep mushroomy flavor. You need less of the mushroom mixture than you think. My next strudel will have a bit less than the one pictured here.

3 cups diced wild mushrooms
1 oz dried porcini (optional)
1 large shallot, diced
2 tbsp butter
olive oil
2 - 3 springs fresh thyme, de-stemmed
1/4 cup white wine
1 handful parsley, chopped
salt and pepper
1 sheet puff pastry
1 egg, beaten

1. If using dried porcini, pulverize in a food processor and rehydrate with 1 cup warm water. Set aside for 20 minutes.

2. Saute diced shallot in butter over medium heat until soft. Add diced mushrooms. Cook mushrooms and shallot together for several minutes. The mushrooms will soak up all the butter; add olive oil if necessary. When mushrooms begin to brown, deglaze pan with a splash of wine. Add mushroom stock and reduce until the mixture is moist but not wet. Stir in thyme and parsley. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Remove from heat.

3. Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out puff pastry into a rectangle about  12 inches by 8 inches. Place pastry on a piece of baking parchment atop a cookie sheet. With a knife, make diagonal cuts to the edges of the two long sides, so that the pastry can be folded up in a braided pattern. Spoon mushroom mixture down the middle. Fold up the strudel and pinch the ends. Brush with eggwash and place in oven. Bake until golden, about 30 minutes.

Halibut with Cauliflower Mushroom & Root Vegetables

It's another dry fall in the Cascades. The new normal. Even so, mushrooms are up if you know where to look. I visited one of my favorite mountain porcini spots the other day only to find a parched landscape with nary a cap or stem in sight. This is why a mushroom hunter needs a diversified portfolio of patches. The next spot, lower in elevation, with taller trees, a nearby watercourse, and more moisture, paid off. I also found a smallish cauliflower mushroom, the prize of the day.

The cauliflower mushroom, genus Sparasiss, is one of my favorites. It looks like something that should be growing on the sea floor, not in a forest, and it's one of the best tasting of all the wild fungi.  The mushroom grows from the duff at the base of trees, old-growth Douglas fir in particular where I live. When you find one, make sure to cut it off at the base with a knife. I try to leave some behind to finish sporulating.

If there's one drawback to Sparasiss, it's cleaning them. All those ruffles and folds collect dirt and pine needles as the mushroom emerges from the ground—forest litter that's difficult to remove. I run the mushroom under a strong tap and try to get as much off as possible, then slice into smaller pieces and wash those as well.

Cauliflower mushrooms are among the tastiest of our wild edible fungi, and in the kitchen they can be used in all sorts of ways. I braise, pickle, and sauté them. They're especially good in a mushroomy broth. You can cook them for hours, infusing your other ingredients with deep fungal flavor, yet they still retain their al dente texture.

This is the sort of dish that would have intimidated me when I first started cooking and now is second nature. The different elements are bound by an intensely flavored yet soupy sauce of butter, chicken stock, and mushroom.

2 portions halibut fillet
1/2 lb cauliflower mushroom, cut into pieces
4 tbsp butter, plus extra
1 shallot, diced
1/4 cup white wine
2 cups chicken stock
1/4 lemon
root vegetable medley, julienned
olive oil
salt and pepper
parsley garnish

1. Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Peel and cut root vegetables into equal shapes and sizes. Mine were twice the size of matchsticks, with a mix of celery root, purple yam, parsnip, and carrots, enough to cover a small roasting pan. Brush on olive oil and roast in oven, cooking for minimum 1/2 hour, tossing and seasoning with salt and pepper at least once.

2. While root vegetables are roasting, heat a large sauce pan on medium-high and melt 2 tablespoons butter. Sauté diced shallot for a minute or two and add mushrooms. They'll soak up the butter quickly, so be ready to add more butter or olive oil. Once the mushrooms have reduced in size and started to brown on the edges, add a splash of wine to de-glaze. Now add 1/2 cup chicken stock and cook that down, adding more stock as the broth reduces and starts to thicken, repeating until the broth is soupy and flavorful, 15 minutes or so. Squeeze in a quarter lemon. Before serving, stir in remaining 2 tablespoons butter.

3. When mushroom broth and root vegetables are nearly done, heat a non-stick pan on medium-high, grease with olive oil, and pan-fry halibut. Season with salt and pepper as you cook and add a little butter. Depending on thickness of fillets, cook each side for a few minutes until the fish is golden on the outside and opaque yet flaky tender inside. Spoon mushrooms and broth into bowls, cover with root vegetables, and top with fish. Sprinkle over a pinch of chopped parsley.

Serves 2

Southern Morels

The Southeast has intrigued me for a long time for its diversity of plants and fungi, a diversity I'd mostly read about in books.

The last time I'd spent any significant amount of time in the region was twenty-five years ago, during a spring break from college that involved some sketchy camping and maybe a little foraging for beer. Earlier this month I had a chance to visit again and speak to mushroom clubs in Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Though fungal diversity was nowhere near what it will be come summer, the spring wildflowers were out—and so were the morels.

Aside from the pesticide-laden morels that fruit in California's olive orchards in late winter, Georgia represents the beginning of morel season for many a roving hunter in the U.S. It was April 1 when I set forth on my first hunt in the Goober State, and I didn't come away with any fool's gold—just this big fat yellow below, a Georgia peach of the fungal variety.

The habitat was so different from what I'm used to in the West. Along with members of the Mushroom Club of Georgia, we scouted river bottoms, looking for concentrations of green ash. One spot within the Atlanta Metro area, filled with dog-walkers and picnickers, delivered in spades. Meanwhile, I was trying to wrap my head around all these hardwood trees that were just beginning to leaf out. Oaks and hickories, buckeyes and magnolias—too many to count, much less identify.

And like the trees, the morels were different too. Depending on which taxonomy you're following, they carry the scientific name Morchella americana or Morchella esculentoides. Most people call them yellows. I don't see them very often in the Pacific Northwest, though they do fruit in a few cottonwood bottomlands in select locales.

Another difference with eastern morel hunting: the beasties. I became fanatical about checking myself for ticks. I have friends who have gotten Lyme's disease and it's no fun. One of the little buggers managed to get its teeth into me and now I'm keeping tabs on the wound, hoping it doesn't grow into a bull's-eye.

The other hazard is from the plant kingdom: poison ivy. The nasty stuff was all over the woods, and at one point while I was taking a breather, leaning casually against one of the many bewildering, unidentifiable hardwoods, my companion suggested I might want to remove my hand from the thick vine of poison ivy that was trellising up the trunk. Doh!

While in Atlanta, I also loaded up on some of the local cuisine. Georgia Organics hosted an amazing dinner that featured some of the city's notable chefs. And if you're a Sichuan geek like me, you'll want to run—not walk—straight to Masterpiece restaurant in nearby Duluth. I can easily say it was the best Sichuan I've had since going to Sichuan Province back in the summer of 2011 (don't miss the dry-fried eggplant or the chicken with a bazillion hot chilies).

In South Carolina, my next stop, I visited Mushroom Mountain, where cultivator Tradd Cotter is growing enough mushrooms, such as these elm oysters pictured at right, to interest Whole Foods. As for the wild ones, the yellows that I found were much smaller and grew mostly with tulip poplars. Locals call them tulip morels. Cryptic and incredibly hard to find (see below), they hid among the leaf litter, often barricaded by poison ivy. With help from the South Carolina Upstate Mycological Society, affectionately known as SCUMS to its members, we sleuthed them out, again in river bottom woods.

The Asheville Mushroom Club in North Carolina was my last stop, but we snuck over the border into Tennessee for morels, where we found the tulip variety as well as my first eastern black morels, pictured below, which proved tricky to spot given all the fallen leaves.

We hunted an area on the edge of Smoky Mountain National Park, where trillium, violets, trout lilies (pictured above) and other wildflowers were in full glorious bloom. The Smokies, I'm told, hold the highest plant biodiversity in North America. Whereas we have one species of trillium in the Pacific Northwest, the Southeast has forty!

Next time—and there will definitely be a next time—I'm returning with my backpack and tent so I can disappear into the Smokies or the Blue Ridge for a spell. Brook trout with wild mushroom stuffing, anyone?

Pining for the Woods

Hard to believe, but I barely got out this fall. Work, kids, the newish book (which, by the way, was a finalist for the Washington State Book Award), plus a new, new book to research—all this and more conspired to keep me on the road for much of August, September, and October.

Back around Labor Day, it looked like we might have another stellar fall mushroom season this year, on par with 2013, and I was kicking myself for the overbooked calendar. August rainstorms—never a given in the Northwest despite what many people might think—did their magic, and the porcini started popping in the mountains. But then it dried out and stayed dry for weeks. Evidence was all over the woods of abortive fruitings.

In early October, right before the annual NAMA conference, held near Mount Rainier this year (for non-mushroom geeks, that's the North American Mycological Association), I got to spend a day in the woods with my pal Jonathan Frank, who was in town for the conference. I like to refer to Jonathan as Captain Aquatic Mushroom Man. He's the guy who's been studying the newly discovered underwater mushroom, Psathyrella aquatica, the first of its kind, which was found happily fruiting on the bottom of Oregon's Rogue River.

Jonathan is also doing DNA work on our western U.S. boletes, including the butter boletes and the beautiful brick red-capped Rocky Mountain kings. Sadly, we got nearly skunked in one of my favorite and usually reliable porcini patches (sheesh, was it ever dry through most of September and early October…and then it got really really wet). We did however find more blue chanterelles (Polyozellus multiplex, pictured above left) than I've ever seen, which I happen to think is just a so-so edible, and a beautiful patch of spreader hedgehogs (Hydnum repandum, at right and below), a very delicious species. Once again, these hedgies were among the beargrass, which is a connection that I think bears further study, so to speak.

At home, we ate the hedgehogs for weeks because, you know, they're about the hardiest of all wild edible mushrooms when it comes to just leaving 'em in the fridge. No problemo. We ate hedgehogs in wonderful autumn comfort dishes like pot roast, minestrone, chicken pot pie, and so on. But because I'm boycotting food photography at the moment, I've got nothing to show you. (Seriously, it's so nice to simply eat and not worry about the light conditions or getting a good shot of whatever freakin' mushroom dish you're cooking.)

Later in October I took food writer/photographer Aran Goyoaga on a mushroom hunt, which she wrote about for Condé Nast Traveler (one of her lovely photos graces the top of this post). Again, we found plenty of hedgehogs in a beautiful stand of old-growth hemlock in the mountains, plus good quantities of yellowfoot (Craterellus tubaeformis), a few admirable boletes (formerly Boletus mirabilis, now Boletellus mirabilis), and some bear's head (Hericium abietis). I've noticed that there's tons of Hericium in the woods this year, and even more honey mushrooms. Wonder what that's all about. I  don't bother with the latter, though I'm told they pickle well. The bear's head was aces in a seafood gumbo, pairing very nicely with the Dungeness crab that it mimicked somewhat in its sautéed form and smoked Andouille sausage.

On another one of my few trip into the woods, I guided a couple who had won my services at an auction for Seattle Tilth. We arrived at one of my regular chanterelle patches from the past decade only to find it clearcut. This is a hazard that any serious chanterelle hunter will face at some point in the Pacific Northwest, likely more than once. Those golden chanties are mycorrhizal with young Douglas fir—but the timber companies are even more enamored of doghair Doug fir. And if you live in the State of Washington, well, the powers that be will tell you that the only way to fund the educations of our school children is to whack 'em down on state-owned land. It's crazy stuff like that that sends me running for the woods in the first place, so I hope to do more sanity maintenance in the not-too-distant future.

Photo at top by Aran Goyoaga; fourth photo from top by Jonathan Frank.