Truffling with Jack

As I lay me down here at home, cold-turkey off the meds, there's not much to report in the way of foraging. Luckily I have my wild food stash and a few things to mention that didn't get mentioned in the fall.

A few months ago while in Portland for some book events I made a side-trip an hour southwest to the Willamette Valley in search of a coveted wild edible to bring back home. It's the sort of edible that inspires otherwise circumspect men to spend stupid sums of money and otherwise intelligent women to sleep with stupid men. At least in Europe that's the case, where the truffle has enjoyed a long, colorful history as a pricey luxury item and sought-after aphrodisiac.

Truffles are subterranean fungi, many of which emit pungent scents to attract the animals that will dig them up, eat them, and subsequently spread their reproductive spores. Whether or not these aromas are ever scientifically proven to heighten arousal we can be sure that truffles will continue to fetch top dollar for their culinary uses. The white "Alba" truffles of Italy and black "Perigord" truffles of France have been the choice of royalty for centuries. Here in North America, specifically in the low-elevation Douglas-fir forests of the Pacific Northwest, we have our own edible truffles that don't require a fancy coat-of-arms or family escutcheon to possess. While not as renowned as their European counterparts, American truffles can stir the same primal passions when used correctly.

And there's the rub. The fact is, most American diners—most American chefs, one could argue—don't know what a good truffle tastes like, or worse (in the case of the chefs), they aren't scrupulous enough to know when to not serve the expensive fungus mocking them in the walk-in. In this country unripe truffles are routinely bought and sold and then passed up the food-chain until they reach restaurant patrons who scratch their heads wondering what all the fuss is about. I've been served a very unspectacular Perigord black truffle by one of Seattle's finest restaurants, with the flourish of a waiter brandishing his mandoline at table. The theatric gesture didn't change the fact that the truffle wasn't ripe.

American truffles seem to suffer even more from ill-use, perhaps because they're cheaper and easier to obtain. A small group of local truffle boosters has been trying to change this, but until the public is more educated—from commercial forager to diner—our home-grown truffles will continue to be viewed as vastly inferior to their European cousins. Which is too bad, because good, ripe truffles from both continents can elevate a meal from excellent to sublime.

As I drove southwest from Portland, I thought about my last meal of truffles. It had been just a few days earlier in San Francisco's North Beach neighborhood, where a friend took me to his favorite trattoria. We ordered plates of linguini with cream sauce. The waiter appeared with a scale and a large white Alba truffle, which he weighed first, then shaved onto our pasta, then weighed again. Like cocaine, truffles are priced by the gram. Fortunately this truffle that had traveled thousands of miles was in top form and our meal, so simple in appearance, was superb. The smell of the truffles rose up in the steam of the dish. Each bite seemed to offer the possibility of a secret revealed. We took in these ineffable pleasures and washed them down with woodsy Piedmontese Barbera...



Autumn colors in neat geometric patterns across the Dundee Hills snapped me out of my reverie. I wasn't in Italy, nor San Francisco. Here in the Willamette Valley the crush of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay had finished and the leaves were turning pretty shades of yellow and orange. In the town of Dayton I pulled into the historic Joel Palmer House to meet my guide.

Jack Czarnecki, former owner of the Joel Palmer House (his son is now the chef-owner), is about the closest thing this country has to a truffle expert, and he's using his expertise to produce truffle oil. Like the proverbial lightning in a bottle, truffle oil is a way to capture the fleeting flavors of truffles and use them year-round; unlike lightning in a bottle, it can really be done. But it should be noted that Jack's all-natural truffle oils are a far cry from the chemical concoctions devised in scientific labs by most of the other so-called truffle oil manufacturers.


A few words about truffle oil. As wild foods, in particular fungi, continue to land on plates served by high-end restaurants across the land, there's been a commensurate increase in the use of truffle oil. Truffle oil is the sort of fancy ingredient that can spruce up a menu and lend extra gravitas to an establishment looking for culinary plaudits. Which would you pay more for? Wild Mushroom Ravioli or Ravioli of Porcini and Chevre drizzled with Truffle Oil... But what is truffle oil? According to Daniel Patterson in his now-infamous New York Times rant, most truffle oils are a fraud—molecular creations that don't actually have a shred of truffle in their recipes.

You see, the truffle's complex aroma has been sequenced out by chemists so that it's now just a series of numbers and letters, an equation. Even the French and Italian oils are guilty of the deception, and though some will include shavings or pieces of truffle in the bottom of the bottle for an implied authenticity, the actual flavor has been created in a test tube.

Jack hasn't taken the short cut. His truffle oils are the real deal. And for this reason, he needs to forage an enormous quantity of truffles each season. I was only too glad to help. With his friend Tony joining us, we set out for the truffle ballpark—in this case, a managed stand of young Douglas firs on private property where Jack has worked out a barter arrangement that is typical between truffle hunters and landowners. To the untrained eye the forest looked like a rather uninviting monocrop. To the experienced truffler, it looked like the strike zone: young, single-aged conifers grew in rows for easy walking and a thick carpet of duff covered the ground underfoot. Using garden rakes, we gently raked back the layer of duff to expose little white tubers up to the size of golf-balls: Oregon winter white truffles, Tuber oregonense.



It was still a couple weeks early and most of the truffles didn't yet have their typically pungent smell. We collected them just the same. Jack explained that it was possible to ripen the truffles if done with patience and an understanding of the truffle's life-cycle.

I came home with a couple pounds of white truffles. Following Jack's instructions, I washed the dirt off each truffle with a quick blast of tap water and then used a toothbrush to clean the exterior. This took some time. Then I swaddled the truffles in paper towels, layering them in Tupperware and sealing the lid before popping into the fridge. The idea is to keep them cool and dry so they can ripen just as they would in the ground. The truffles sweat so you need to change the damp towels every couple days.

Most of a truffle's flavor and aroma comes in the form of gases emitted by the truffle which can then be absorbed in fats. This is why you never cook truffles at high temperature; the fragile gases get cooked out. The best way to serve truffles is to shave them thinly over hot food on the plate, not in the pan, and allow the flavors to soak in. Scrambled eggs, melted butter, and cream sauces are the perfect vehicles.

Unfortunately most of my individual truffles never ripened as much as they would have in the ground. My ripest specimens got thinly sliced into dishes such as homemade Tagliatelle with Alfredo Sauce to which they added a noticeable hint of truffle, though not as much as I would have preferred. But I had another card up my sleeve: I made a couple pounds of truffled butter, a better choice for my slow-ripening truffles. I sealed sticks of organic sweet cream butter into Tupperware with a few ounces of truffles per stick and left them in the fridge for a few weeks. By the end the truffles were decomposing, but over the course of those weeks they emitted enough of their fabled gases to flavor the butter. (Oh, and by the way, if you ever see truffled butter that's shot through with pieces of ground-up truffle, know that this is either a misconception on the maker's part or a gimmick. It's all about the gases.) The truffled butter is wonderful melted over pasta or simply spread on toast.

This was my first experience digging white truffles. In general I'd say they're stronger than black truffles. Black truffles have a distinctly different flavor (fruitier, less garlicky) and are supposedly harder to find, though I've had some luck foraging them in recent years. Both whites and blacks can make a special accompaniment to a meal when properly ripe, and whether or not our local truffles deserve comparison with European varieties is besides the point. Truffles are a treat wherever they are handled with skill.

Spiced Up Take-Out

Chinese take-out. It's one of the great pleasures in life, especially if the take-out is good and cheap. I've got a favorite Szechuan joint not too far from home. It sits nearly anonymously on the edge of the International District in an uninspiring little strip mall called "Asian Plaza." The restaurant's name is equally original: Szechuan Cuisine. Before it was remodeled it didn't even have a recognizable name, just a bunch of faded Chinese characters strewn haphazardly above the door.

Those faded characters seemed like a good omen to a bunch of us wandering around looking for lunch one day more than a decade ago. By our third or fourth trip we were calling it The House, as in: "Should we pay a visit to The House today?" There was no denying it was the go-to lunch spot for a bunch of us who worked together, our house lunch establishment. You could order 25 pot-stickers for $3.50. Prices have gone up since then. Now you get 20 pot-stickers for $4.95.

The House is known for its Hot Pot but usually we order more obvious stuff like Ants on a Tree or Twice Cooked Pork. I'm a sucker for the salty-sweet nothings of the General Tso-ish Manadarin Spicy Chicken, and the Garlic Beef makes other versions seem pedestrian at best.

Rather than get bogged down in the kitchen this Halloween Eve, Marty and I wanted to watch some scary movies with the kids and eat popcorn and candy. The House to the rescue! But this time I had a little home-made treat to spruce up our plates of take-out: Szechuan Pickled Fungi & Vegetables.

The fungi were cauliflower mushrooms (Sparassis radicata) picked near the Columbia River Gorge a few weeks ago. While driving from a book reading in Hood River to the Wordstock Lit Fest in Portland I stopped off in the hills above the Gorge to go for a hike. The trail contoured across a steep pitch shaded by old-growth fir and hemlock. Horses had been on it recently. I didn't expect to see much in the way of mushrooms along this rather dry section of trail, but a mile or so in I came across my first cauliflower mushrooms of the year, a pair of recently emerged specimens of average size, each one weighing a few pounds.

Cauliflowers are delicious mushrooms and they can be huge. A few years ago someone brought a 50-pound cauliflower to the Puget Sound Mycological Society's annual exhibit. The mushroom boasts a nutty flavor and firm texture that doesn't soften with cooking like so many other species. Even after braising in a stew for an hour they remain al dente, which is a good way to describe the texture since this mushroom resembles nothing so much as a bowl full of cooked egg noodles. Its wavy protrusions and deep clefts are expert at trapping duff and forest debris, making the cauliflower one of the more difficult mushrooms to clean. Worms like them too. The trick, as with so many tasty mushrooms, is to find them before the worms do—or else cut away the infestations as best as possible.

Szechuan Pickled Fungi & Vegetables

Szechuan peppercorns are the key ingredient. Not really pepper, the spice is actually the husk of a type of berry widespread through Asia. When consumed, it gives the mouth and lips a numb tingling feeling that works well with other hot spices commonly found in Szechuan foods.

1 lb cauliflower mushroom, boiled for a few minutes and cut into pieces
1 lb Napa cabbage, pulled apart and cut into 2-inch squares
1/2 lb diakon radish, sliced into 1/4-inch thick half-moons or matchsticks
2 carrots, sliced on an angle into 1/4-inch thick ovals
6-8 hot peppers cut in half and de-seeded
1/4 cup sliced ginger
2 tbsp Szechuan peppercorns
2 tbsp vodka
6-8 cups water, boiled and cooled
3 tbsp salt

Mix the brine and Szechuan peppercorns in a large tupperware or other non-reactive container. Stir in vodka; this is strictly for sanitary reasons. Add vegetables, fungi, and spices, making sure they are immersed completely in the brine. Cover and store at room temperature for 3-5 days. After the initial pickling, the contents can be refrigerated for 2 weeks.

Freezer Burn, or: A Few Good Apps

If you want to get serious about foraged foods, a big ol' freezer is pretty much indispensable. Mine is packed with crabs, clams, nettles, mushrooms, berries, smoked salmon, shad, assorted heads, various stocks, and so on. Such a freezer full of foraged foods comes in handy for a party. Never mind that Marty tried her best to sabotage the whole affair by leaving the freezer door open for 18 hours a few days before. Most of the packages were still frozen, if sweating on the outside, and the clearly defrosted stuff got whipped into shape for the party, including stinging nettle pesto, Columbia river shad, and porcini mushrooms.

Look, Mom, no bones!

The shad in particular was a thing of genius. Several of the vacuum-sealed packages were flimsy, the once frozen shad now thawed and bendy. There was no way those things were going back into the deep freeze. As anyone who's ever processed these largest members of the herring family knows, shad are bony critters fit for deboning by the same jailbirds who punch out New Hampshire's "Live Free or Die" license plates.

Normally I have most of my Columbia River shad catch smoked and canned at Tony's, but I always keep a few fillets on hand to smoke myself or bake in the Low-Country style. This time I wanted a croquette I could serve at the party with a spicy New Orleans remoulade. I baked the shad for 30 minutes, spent 15 minutes picking as many bones as I could, and then buzzed the pile o' fish in the Cuisinart. To this pulverized mass of shad I added sauteed onions and red pepper, Worstcester sauce, lemon juice, an egg, some flour, cayenne pepper, and a bunch of fresh herbs from the garden, including tarragon, basil, chives, and parsley. I added more of the herbs than you might think; the more the better, in fact. Shad is a rich, strong-tasting fish, and the fresh herbs help to brighten the flavor and temper it at the same time. Hank Shaw has posted a similar recipe here, minus the sauteed veggies and lemon.

Once made, you can refrigerate the shad for a few days until party time. It has a consistency similar to well-mixed tuna fish salad. Or you can plow ahead and make the croquettes ahead of time and then freeze. I took the latter path, forming little hockey pucks of about the same diameter as a fifty-cent piece. These I dredged generously in panko and placed on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper. Into the freezer they went for a couple hours until solid enough to be removed to zip-lock bags. An hour before the party I arranged them once again on a cookie sheet to defrost and fried in oil minutes before the guests arrived. The fried shad croquettes were then topped with the red remoulade (although an aioli would be good too).

Porcini Crostini

I took this one from John Sundstrom, the chef/owner of Lark restaurant in Seattle. The prep is really quite simple: chopped porcini mushrooms roasted in olive oil with fresh thyme and rosemary. It's a little depressing to see all that beautiful fresh porcini lose half its volume by the time it comes out of the oven, but that's the nature of this fungal beast. Thinly sliced baguette is lightly toasted, rubbed with garlic, covered with a blanket of good ricotta, and topped with the porcini (and a generous sprinkling of salt).

Slow-roasted Tomatoes with Nettle Pesto Garnish

The last canape escaped the intrusions of paparazzi. Tomatoes were cored, chopped, and placed in a glass dish with olive oil to slowly roast overnight in a 225-degree oven. These got spooned on squares of baked polenta and dabbed with stinging nettle pesto.

Next time Marty better conspire to leave the freezer door open a little longer, 'cause we gotta clean out that sucker once and for all this winter.

Putting Up Porcini

If you want to pick mountain porcini, you best keep your ear to the wall. No one casually gives up their patches of porcini. It's hard enough to predict where and when the buggers will fruit as it is.

Here in the Cascades we get two, possibly three distinct fruitings of porcini: the spring variety, which is now officially known as Boletus rex-veris; and the summer/fall varieties, which might be distinct from each other but get lumped in together as a single species with the famous porcini of Italy, Boletus edulis. All varieties are deserving of their nickname "king bolete." With their firm flesh and nutty flavor, they might be my favorite wild mushrooms of all.

A couple weeks ago while picking huckleberries I got a tip from some hikers that a lot of mushrooms were fruiting to the south. The next day I hopped in the car and made an educated guess about where to go. Mountain porcini like high elevations, and they're picky about tree composition. True firs and spruce are the ticket. After a three-mile hike I started to see them—first some blown-out flags in the sunny areas and then fetching number one buttons emerging out of the duff in more shaded spots.

When picking porcini, always make sure to field dress them right away. I trim the end to check for worm holes, then cut the mushroom in half. Often a pristine looking bolete will show signs of bugs once you slice it open, but the infestations will just as often be local to a small area of the cap or stem that can be trimmed away. Whatever you do, don't simply put a porcino in your basket to trim later at home. I've learned the hard way that a basketful of beautiful buttons can be a worm-ridden mess by the time you get home if you don't deal with the bugs immediately.

By the end of the day I had nearly 10 pounds of mostly perfect porcini buttons (having thrown away twice that amount as too far gone). What a dilemma! I had more porcini than I could use. Some I cooked, some I gave away, and the rest got pickled.

Pia's Pickled Porcini

My friend Cora, who stars in the morel hunting chapter of Fat of the Land the book, passed this recipe along to me from his father's cousin, who lives in Cortemiglia, Italy. She gathers 20 to 50 pounds of porcini annually, so putting up some is a must.

2 cups white vinegar
2 oz water
2 tsp salt
extra light olive oil
1/2 tsp peppercorns per jar

Clean and quarter porcini buttons. Bring vinegar, water, and salt to boil. Cook porcini in batches, no more than 3 minutes per batch. Drain on paper towels and set aside to dry for at least 8 hours. Pack sterilized jars with porcini and peppercorns, then fill with extra light olive oil (use safflower oil if keeping more than 6 months).

Pickled Sea Beans

A couple weekends ago I attended an oyster fest on Samish Bay complete with sea kayaks, local beer, midnight skinny-dip, and a bluegrass band that retired fireside to play late-night requests. Good times. In addition to being fed ridiculous quantities of fresh oysters, clams, Dungeness crab, and salmon, the beach boasted a patch of sea beans stretching for hundreds of yards. The property owner, who runs ACME seafood, told me to have at it. We packed my daughter's sand pail the next morning before driving home.

Sea beans (Salicornia sp.) are known by many names: beach asparagus, glasswort, pickleweed, samphire. They're a succulent, salt-tolerant plant that grows along beaches, marshes, and mangroves around the world. In my region we find sea beans near the high tide mark along sandy or pebbly beaches. Fresh, they make a crunchy snack while clamming, and retain that pleasing crunch even after cooking. The flavor, if it can be called that, is subtle, a salty taste of the sea with a hint of wild green. I like sauteed sea beans mostly for the texture, the bright color, and the salt, as in an oyster succotash.

Sea beans also make an excellent garnish. Pickling them means you can have sea beans whenever inspiration strikes. I looked around for pickling recipes, of which there are few, and settled on two styles: Far East and Southwest.

Spicy Pickled Sea Beans

For the Southwest I adapted a fairly standard pickling recipe for spicy green beans:

4 handfuls sea beans
4 red chiles
6 garlic cloves
pinch peppercorns per jar
pinch coriander seeds per jar
pinch mustard seeds per jar
4 sprigs fresh dill
1 1/4 cup water
1 1/4 cup white wine vinegar

1. Sterilize jars and lids in boiling water.

2. When jars are cool enough to handle, add pinches of coriander, mustard, and peppercorns. Pack half full with sea beans. Insert chiles, garlic cloves, and dill around outside edges. Finish packing with sea beans.

3. Bring water and vinegar to a boil. Ladle over the sea beans leaving about 1/2-inch head space. Wipe jar edge clean and screw on sterilized lids.

4. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove and allow to cool completely at room temperature. Check lids for proper seal. Store for at least one month before using to allow flavors to develop.

Yields 2 pints.

Asian Pickled Sea Beans

For the Far East I used Matt Wright's recipe.

sea beans
rice vinegar
1 tbsp sugar per cup of vinegar
3 1-inch slices ginger per jar
1 star anise per jar

Figure on using at least 1 cup of vinegar for 2 half-pint jars. Oh, and rice vinegar and rice wine vinegar are essentially the same thing, in case you were wondering.

1. Sterilize jars and lids in boiling water.

2. When jars are cool enough to handle, pack with sea beans. Insert ginger slices around edges and a single star anise at top.

3. Bring rice vinegar and sugar to a boil. Ladle over the sea beans leaving about 1/2-inch head space. Wipe jar edge clean and screw on sterilized lids.

4. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Remove and allow to cool completely at room temperature. Check lids for proper seal. Store for at least a few days before using to allow flavors to develop.

Word of warning: If you don't own a dedicated canner with a rack (i.e. you use a big 'ol pot instead, like me) be very careful with your jars to avoid breakage. I discovered this the hard way. Because the contents of the jars—the sea beans—are packed cold, your jars can experience a terrible fate called thermal shock and pop their bottoms off. Not pleasant. Keep the jars in the hot sterilization water until ready, pack them, don't overscrew the lids (you know what I mean), then place carefully in the pot before bringing to a boil. In restaurant/software speak, this is called a "soft launch."

And don't forget to use any leftover sea beans post-pickling. They make a salty garnish, or you can saute them in butter and garlic with a drizzle of lemon juice for a side dish. To leech out some of the salt, try blanching and shocking in two changes of water.

Porcini Every Day

Eating fresh porcini is a treat, but you can experience the earthy goodness of bolete mushrooms throughout the year by drying some of your catch. If you've ever paid for a 1 oz package of dried porcini at the market then you know drying your own makes economical sense too.

For us West Coasters, spring porcini makes a case for drying because it's abundant and it's often wormy. Rather than tossing the wormy ones, I slice up those that aren't too badly infested and cut away the parts riddled with holes. Any worms I miss will usually exit once they realize the gig's up, and those that don't, being mostly water, evaporate into nothingness during the drying process. Besides, most of my dried porcini gets pulverized in a blender for use in stocks and sauces, so I'm not too concerned about a few pinpricks of worm dust; we eat more insects in our salads.

Drying Porcini, Step by Step

1. Slice mushrooms into 1/4 inch thickness. Discard badly wormed out bits.

2. Arrange in a single layer on screen. I use an old window screen scavenged just for this purpose. Prop up the screen at the corners with books if necessary to increase airflow underneath.

3. Place screen and mushrooms in a sunny room or outside and blast them with a portable fan. Depending on your climate, this may take a few days. Alternatively, you can place on a pan in an oven on low heat and leave the door open for air circulation; I've never tried this technique but others claim it works. A food dehydrator is another option.

4. Very important. Make sure every last mushroom slice is thoroughly dried. Some pieces will snap in half; others will be bendy but if you rip in two the inside shouldn't be at all moist. A single undried piece can spoil an entire batch with mold. On the other hand, don't overdry or you'll leach out the good flavor oils.

5. Store dried porcini carefully. My main foe is the indestructible kitchen moth, so I keep my porcini in glass mason jars with rubber-gasket lids that lock down.

Like a fine wine, the longer you age your porcini, the more the earthy essence will be concentrated. Now you've got a taste of the woods to enjoy year-round. Reconstitute a handful of pieces for a pasta sauce, or pulverize and add to your favorite beef stock for an extra boost. I use dried porcini in any number of dishes, from Oxtail Gnocchi to Braised Chicken to Chanterelle Soup.

Speaking of bolete worms, this time around I noticed an interesting phenomenon. I used six books to prop up two screens side by side. One of the books, Bill Buford's Heat appropriately enough, has a bright yellow dust jacket. The worms that crawled out of the mushrooms during the drying process all migrated to this colorful cover where they made their last stand in the sun. None of the other books exhibited evidence of worms. In fact, I've never actually seen worms escaping off their host mushrooms before, it's just something I assumed happened under the cover of darkness. It's as if they all made a break for the yellow book, thinking it salvation. Is this because the gills of old boletes are yellow? I have no idea, but I'll be using Heat again.

Stinging Nettle Pesto

I've evangelized stinging nettles plenty in this space before. If you're still a skeptic, here's an an oh-so-foolproof way to get yer nettles on. (And a good reason not to feel guilty about owning a Cuisinart that takes up valuable shelf space.) If you live in the PNW, don't tarry: the coastal nettles are perfect size right now, and foothills nettles shouldn't be too far off. For my brothers and sisters in the Midwest and Northeast, hang in there—your time is nigh.

2 cups stinging nettles, blanched and chopped (figure 6 cups raw)
1/2 cup Parmesan
1/2 cup pine nuts, roasted
4-5 large garlic cloves, peeled
1/2 cup olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper, to taste

Because stinging nettles must be boiled briefly to neutralize the sting—unlike basil—my advice is to use a food processor. Much has been said about making the traditional basil pesto in a blender—much of it disparaging. 101 Cookbooks recommends chopping the ingredients together with a mezzaluna and David Lebovitz uses the uber-traditional mortar and pestle. But nettles are different from basil. Once boiled and drained, they're a soggy mess; a food processor remedies this sorry state without messing with that splendid day-glo green color.

1. Blanche nettles for a minute in boiling water. Remove to a salad spinner and shake off excess water, then ball up your nettles and give one good squeeze to wring out more water. It's tough to watch all that dark green, nutrient-laden liquid vanish down the drain, but you'll want olive oil lubricating your pesto, not water.

2. Add nettles to food processor, along with roasted pine nuts (or walnuts, if you prefer), grated parmesan, garlic cloves, lemon juice, and seasoning. Pour half of the olive oil in and...Whirrrr. Pour the rest of the oil in. Whir again, until your preferred consistency. That's it.

This recipe makes a fairly pasty pesto; if you want something a little more spreadable for bread, sammiches, etc., try using more olive oil.

Next, think about putting up. You may want to fill a few small (e.g. 4 oz) tubs for the freezer for dinner party pasta, as well as an ice tray for smaller servings. To fill the tray, use a plastic Ziploc with a corner cut out and squeeze out a blob of pesto in each cavity, just like icing. Remove the pesto cubes from the tray once frozen and seal in a freezer bag; now you've got instant sauce to brighten a fillet of fish or piece of meat—or simply to spread on good homemade rosemary bread baked by your friend and neighbor, as we did.

Stinging Nettle, Potato & Leek Soup

This is the time of year when my stash of stinging nettles comes in handy. I've got a few packets of blanched and vacuum-packed nettles in the freezer awaiting the lasagna treatment and a larger store of dried, powdered nettles that can be easily added to soups or teas. High in protein and nutrients, stinging nettles are a jolt to the system—in other words, they're just the ticket for the deepest, coldest stretch of winter. They also have that taste of the wild that can't be duplicated by domestication.

Who doesn't love a soup that's ready to eat within an hour on a winter day? Just take your favorite Potato Leek recipe and sprinkle in a couple heaping tablespoons of dried nettles. If you got 'em, that is. If you don't got 'em, may I recommend you plan an outing for the spring. Your local hippies at the health food store should have nettles too. Just a couple tablespoons can transform a routine dish into something with a little more edge to it, a dish that sits up and howls at the winter moon.

3 tbsp butter
3 leeks, thinly sliced (tops discarded)
1 onion, chopped
2 lbs russet potatoes, peeled and sliced
1 lb red potatoes, unpeeled and cut up
1 quart chicken stock
2 heaping tbsp dried & powdered stinging nettles
1 cup heavy cream
1 bay leaf
pinch of white pepper
pinch of thyme
salt to taste

Melt butter in a heavy soup pot. Saute leeks and onion until soft. Add potatoes. Cook a few minutes. Cover with chicken stock; add water if necessary until potatoes are fully covered. Throw in a bay leaf. Simmer for 10 minutes before adding nettles. Continue simmering until potatoes are tender, then work with a masher. Season and add spices. Turn heat to low. Now is the time to use an immersion blender; otherwise, blend in a food processor to desired consistency. Stir in heavy cream and, if you like, a pat of butter.

For a little extra umph, I floated a few garlic-rubbed croutons on top.

Gift of the Magi

As it happens, 2009 marks my first year with an immersion blender in the arsenal, hence my desire to put it to work. In fact, Marty and I gave each other immersion blenders for Christmas. Same brand, same model. The two presents sat under the tree, fully wrapped, identical, until New Year's Day when we finally decided to give in to the inevitable. The kids took pictures. It was, as they say, a "teachable moment." It's the thought that counts.

Over the years we've tried to resist gadget creep. Toaster-over? No, thanks. Popcorn popper? Pass. Espresso machine? Mr. Coffee gets it done. Waffle iron? Puh-leeeze! But I'll admit we've both coveted the immersion blender from time to time, especially during those all too frequent times we overfed the food processor and sprayed soup everywhere. Plus, they're fairly compact and inexpensive. This was my first test drive and I have to say it came through with flying colors. Hooray for immersion blenders!

Huckleberry Jelly

It was supposed to be a jam, but I skimped on the pectin and my parsimoniousness was rewarded with a slightly thinner batch with bounce to it. No matter. The huckleberry flavor is outstanding. Next time I might try adding some lemon rind.

4 cups berries
3 cups sugar
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 package of pectin (whole for jam)
1/2 tsp butter

Mash the berries by the cupful into a sauce pan. Stir in lemon juice and pectin and bring to a boil. Stir in sugar and butter and bring to a boil once more, stirring constantly. Boil for a full minute, then ladle into sterilized jars. Place lidded jars in a boiling water bath for at least five minutes. Yields 5 half-pints of jelly.

The Great Frozen Porcini Test, Part 3

Friends, the verdict is in. But first some suspense. As you'll recall, in recent weeks I've been putting a batch of frozen spring porcini through the paces in an effort to understand: a.) whether there's a preferred way to defrost the porcini; b.) whether there's a preferred way to cook with thawed porcini; and c.) if it's worth freezing porcini in the first place.

My first attempt, Test 1, was to remove the frozen porcini from its vacuum-sealed bag and let it thaw for several hours on the kitchen counter. You can read the results here.

The second test was to cook with the frozen porcini right out of the freezer. Read the results here.

My final test was to keep the porcini in its vacuum-sealed bag overnight in the refrigerator. Mushrooms are basically sponges. They're mostly water, which is why you try to cook the water out even with fresh specimens. I'm not sure exactly why, but when frozen mushrooms thaw out, unlike meats, they lose a lot of their water in the process (probably because there's cellular damage from the freezing and the mushroom simply can't contain all its moisture in the aftermath).

After thawing for 24 hours, my porcini were swimming in a small pool of liquid at the bottom of the bag—but they were still firm. Yes, they were wet and slippery on the outside and you would never want to shave raw defrosted porcini over a salad the way you might with fresh, but they were also firm, like canned button mushrooms. I preferred the texture of the thawed porcini in Test 3 to Test 1; something about not exposing the defrosting mushrooms to air is a good thing.

I tried Test 3 on two occasions, making Stroganoff one night (pictured at left) and making Jane Grigson's Poultry Stewed with Ceps another night. Let me tell you, dear readers, the Grigson recipe is a keeper, and the frozen porcini, left to thaw overnight in the refrigerator in their vacuum-sealed bag, passed with flying colors.

Poultry Stewed with Ceps

1 chicken, cut into pieces (2 breasts, 2 thighs, 2 legs)
seasoned flour for dredging
1/2 cup olive oil
4 tbsp butter
1/4 cup brandy
1 medium onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 large carrot, chopped
fresh herbs, chopped
2 cups stock (or less)
1 lb porcini (ceps), caps sliced, stalks chopped
parsley, chopped

Flour chicken and brown in half the oil and all the butter. Flame with brandy, turning chicken. Add the onion, garlic, and carrot and stir in pan juices. Lower heat and cook, stirring occasionally for 10 minutes. Add fresh herbs and 1 cup of stock. Cover partly. Meanwhile in a separate pan saute the porcini in remaining oil, then add to chicken. Pour in more stock if necessary. Serve over brown rice. Serves 4-6.

Whew! Now it's time to get into the woods and find some fresh porcini!

Salmonberry Jam

Lowland salmonberries may be long gone, but up in the mountains they're peaking right now. Last week I gathered a few cups above 3,500 feet—enough to make two half-pint jars of jam.

Though not as flavorful as some other Rubus berries such as thimbleberries, blackcap raspberries, and blackberries, salmonberries are gorgeous to look at. Ripened berries vary in color from bright orange to red to purple, sometimes on the same bush. Why this is so is a mystery to me.

I used this jam recipe, with the addition of pectin. Salmonberry jam takes more effort and patience than thimbleberry jam. Unlike thimbleberries, salmonberries don't want to cook down or thicken with sugar. I ended up using a potato masher to speed along the process, and even then the sugar-berry mix was thin and runny. In the end I added a tablespoon of pectin to get a jammier consistency.

It's not quite the delicacy that thimble jam is, but I'll take it. More arrows in the quiver.