Wild Berry Tartlets

Lace Thornberg, editor of the Washington Trails Association magazine, joined me for a berry-picking hike on Tiger Mountain the other day. (If you're an outdoors enthusiast in the Northwest, you should check out WTA and consider becoming a member.) We had hoped to explore more far-flung woods—the North Fork Quinault rain forest on the Olympic Peninsula was at the top of my list—but summertime plans intervened and Tiger was the best we could do with just a morning at our disposal.

It doesn't look like a great red huckleberry year, and first reports coming in from the early-ripening mountain huckleberries near Spokane are not encouraging either. Was it the strange spring weather? The lack of July rain? Maybe it's just a cyclical thing. In any event, the red hucks on Tiger were pretty small and not in abundance, but we made the best of it. Lace demonstrated her finely honed hiking skills by whipping out the backpacker's berry receptacle of choice—a Nalgene bottle—and dexterously filled it in no time.

Red huckleberries (Vaccinium parvifolium) are the first of our many huckleberry species to fruit in the summer, generally preceding their darker cousins by a few weeks. Though found sporadically in the interior as far east as Idaho, they're at their best in the lowland mixed forests of the North Pacific Coast, from Central California up through British Columbia. The west-slope Cascade foothills are good habitat, and the rain forests of the Olympics are loaded with them. The berries are bright fire-engine red and a little more tart than most mountain huckleberries. They look especially good in a fruit salad.

We also found trailing blackberries, the native blackberry of the Pacific Northwest.

After picking and grazing through a series of bushes up and down the trail we headed back toward the parking lot, running into a black bear along the way that was engaged in the same pursuit. The bear eyed us for a moment, then ambled on into the patch, unconcerned.

Lace and I agreed that a tart would be a good choice for the berries. As I've mentioned here before, my baking skills are somewhat suspect so I tend to look for easy recipes. Lo and behold a recipe from Martha Stuart Kids for a simple, unfussy tart dough that can be formed in a muffin tin—right in my wheelhouse! I halved the recipe, since two dozen tarts seemed like overkill, and then set about to make a sweet cheese filling to offset the tartness of the berries.

Tart Dough

1/2 cup flour
3 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut up
2 tbsp confectioner sugar
2 tbsp cold water

Combine flour, sugar, and butter in a food processor and pulse until grainy. Add the water a tablespoon at a time to food processor while running. Pulse until dough forms. I used my hands at the end to finish combining what the Cuisinart missed. Roll into a cylinder, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate for 30 minutes minimum or up to a day.

Sweet Cheese

1 8-oz package cream cheese, cut into 8 pieces.
6 tbsp sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
lemon zest of half a small lemon

Combine cream cheese and sugar in food processor. Whir until smooth. Add flour, egg, vanilla, and lemon zest and whir again until creamy.

Berry Topping

1 cup wild berries
2 tbsp sugar
2 tsp corn starch

Briefly cook berries with sugar and corn starch until juices are syrupy.

For the final tarts I took my dough out of the refrigerator and sliced it into a dozen disks. Each disk I flattened into a 3-inch diameter round on a lightly floured surface before pressing into a muffin tin and forming into a cup. Each little tart—tartlet, if I may be so bold—then got a dollop of sweet cheese filling before being topped with a spoonful of the cooked red huckleberries and a few fresh blackberries. I baked the tartlets for around 20 minutes at 400 degrees.

They were met with approval.

Oregon-grape Preserves

The state flower of Oregon looks like holly and grows throughout much of Cascadia. Anyone who spends time in the woods from Northern California up through British Columbia is familiar with its prickly green leaves, bright yellow blooms, and the tart berries that form in clusters in summer. It's not exactly trail food. Pick a few berries on a hike and you'll experience a lip-puckering flavor that gives new meaning to the term sour grapes. But tame it with sugar and you've got a whole realm of culinary possibilities.

Oregon-grape is not a true grape. Though its dark blue berries hang in grape-like clusters, that's where the comparison ends. Members of the family Berberidaceae, the various species of Oregon-grape are also known for their medicinal qualities. The two species commonly encountered in the forests of the Pacific Northwest are the tall Oregon-grape (Mahonia aquifolium) and low Oregon-grape (Mahonia nervosa). Some botanists consider them part of the Berberis genus, which includes a variety of species commonly called barberries and which are renowned for containing berberine, a compound with cancer-fighting and anti-depressant properties, among other medicinal benefits.

To make Oregon-grape preserves wear gloves and harvest a good quantity of the berries. I picked five pounds or so from a patch behind my daughter's pre-K, right in the center of Seattle. Use containers and utensils that won't stain. Wash the berries and remove any large stems or other leafy debris. Put the berries in a pot and add just enough water so that the berries are barely covered. Boil for 15 minutes until soft, then run through a food-mill in batches. The food-mill should separate the juice and pulp from the skins and seeds.

Now you have a choice: You can further strain the juice from the pulp by using cheese cloth or a fine mesh strainer, or you can leave the pulp in to make a preserve more aptly called a spread. Next measure your juice. I had a scant 5 cups. In general you'll want to add an equivalent amount of sugar, give or take depending on your taste. Try mixing in other fruits or berries, too, or even ginger. Bring your juice to a boil and stir in the optional lemon juice and pectin. I used about half of a 1.75 oz package. Next add the sugar, not all at once but slowly, tasting as you go until reaching your preferred balance between tart and sweet. Bring to a boil again, stirring thoroughly, and cook for a few minutes, then remove from heat and immediately ladle into sterilized jars. Process in a hot water bath for 10 minutes.

My measurements:

5 cups Oregon-grape juice and pulp
4 1/2 cups sugar
juice of 1 lemon (optional)
1 oz pectin

Yield: 3 1/2 pints

While Oregon-grape preserves look and taste a lot like your standard grape jelly, the flavor is more complex and full-bodied, with a sweetness that will please children and a tart edge suitable to a grown-up palate. I think it makes a terrific PB&J yet a dollop is equally at home on a fancy cheese plate.

Sweet and Sour Geoduck

A recent New York Times article about East Coast clam culture got me wondering: Why no clam shacks around Puget Sound? Day-trip to a beach near New York City or Boston or anywhere along the Jersey Shore and you're bound to stumble on a weathered, low-slung joint where the beer is cold and the clams are fresh. Near Seattle? Not so much. And please, don't try to sell me on Ivar's. The sad truth is we don't have mom and pop clam shacks here, not in any discernible numbers. Population density, I heard someone say, but the Puget Sound region is now pushing five million people, certainly enough to warrant a few well established hole-in-the-wall shellfish shrines.

Another possibility is the clam fare itself. In addition to steamer clams (Mya arenaria, aka Eastern softshells), the Atlantic boasts another species not native to the Pacific, the quahog (Mercenaria mercenaria), and with it an entire category: clams on the half-shell, which is to say raw clams. Out here we mostly do oysters raw.

Still, even if the clams are different you would think the abundance of seafood in the Northwest would promote more than the occasional touristy fish and chip parlor. We have razor clams, littleneck clams, butter clams, horse clams, a variety of oysters, Dungeness crab, spot shrimp, and so on, not to mention the infamous geoduck. An enterprising soul should be able to open a seaside shanty with local beer and lots of seafood and turn it into a destination. You'd think...

I was thinking about this dearth of clam bar culture when I decided I'd bow to the Pacific Rim inclinations of my town and try to marry those leanings to a more down-home greasy spoon approach. I decided to deep fry the remainder of last week's geoduck clam for Sweet and Sour 'Duck.

Let me just say up front that I never order Sweet and Sour anything at Chinese restaurants. That gooey radioactive pink sauce is too weird even for me. But sweet and sour, when done the right way, is a time-honored amalgam of flavors in the Far East and I decided it would make a good match for deep-fried geoduck. I gave a nod to the Americanized version by adding onions and bell pepper. My one big mistake: I added the clams, already fried and crispy, back into the wok at the end to get them thoroughly coated with sauce, which turned them instantly soggy. Bad call! Best to pour on the sauce when you're ready to serve.

1 small yellow onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
peanut oil
1/2 pound geoduck, sliced into thin strips

For Batter:
2 eggs
1/2 cup or more corn starch

For sauce:
3 tbsp white sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp black Chinese vinegar
1 tsp soy sauce
4 tsp corn starch
3 scallions, thinly sliced
1 tbsp garlic, minced
1 tbsp ginger, minced
3/4 cup chicken stock
1 tsp sesame oil

1. Prepare sauce ingredients. In a small bowl mix together sugar, salt, black vinegar, soy sauce, and corn starch. Set aside.

2. In wok over high heat, stir-fry onion and bell pepper with a tablespoon of peanut oil for 2 minutes or so, until starting to soften. Set aside and keep warm.

3. Add enough oil to wok to fry sliced clam in batches. Beat eggs and add to corn starch. Batter should be thick; add more corn starch if necessary. Batter and fry sliced clams until golden, then remove to paper towels. Set aside and keep warm.

4. After carefully disposing fry oil, quickly make sauce. Add 3 tablespoons peanut oil to wok over medium heat. Stir-fry garlic and ginger for 30 seconds. Add stock and bring to boil, then add the prepared sauce ingredients. Stir the sauce as it thickens, then add scallions and sesame oil.

5. Serve the vegetables over rice and topped with the fried clam. Pour sauce over.

Great geoducks, Batman!

A boy never forgets his first 'duck. Or his first German TV documentary shoot...

Mare TV is in town, taking in the Seattle waterfront and its multi-splendored offerings of scenery, food, and fun. They were especially keen to sample what the old-timers politely call horseneck, so we saddled up the whole FOTL gang in our trusty Folksvagen and rode a ferry over to the far side of Puget Sound with a Hood Canal geoduck in mind.

These low-low summer tides are generally the most pleasant time to dig a three or four foot hole on the beach and wrestle a horseneck out of the mud. On Sunday we had a -3 foot low tide to get excited about but wouldn't you know the first heat wave of the season had passed by and a new marine layer (wonky weatherman-speak for shitty weather) was moving in. (No doubt you've heard about Seattle's two seasons: winter and August. Da-dum-dum. I'll be here all week.) This presented some problems. Barometric pressure, I learned, can cause a tide to lose its edge. In this case, the water wasn't draining off the flats the way one would normally expect for such a low tide. What's more, a breezy chop was causing wave action that muddied the water and had the geoducks mostly hunkering down into their lairs. Even the geoduck-sniffing dogs were getting blanked.



We did find one good show, though, and that's all that mattered. My pal John Adams, proprietor of the family-owned Skookum Point Shellfish Farm at the convergence of Little Skookum and Totten Inlets in Shelton, was on hand to offer his shellfish expertise. (If you ever have a chance to slurp down some of his beach-grown Skookum Point oysters, don't hesitate—they're some of the best I've ever eaten.)

This 'duck turned out to be an obstinate one. Even after Riley touched the tip of his siphon he (or she) refused to back down, keeping its neck extended like a middle digit. After digging a couple feet down next to the burrow we could see why: the clam was way down there, deeper than most, and firmly ensconced in sediment that was more like wet cement than loose sand or mud. I suppose it felt secure in its holdings. Riley wasn't deterred—he told his dad to keep digging!

The tide was on its way back in when we finally pulled the 4-pound clam from its burrow. Tradition dictated that Riley give his first 'duck a big kiss. He didn't flinch.



Later in camp, with a terrific view of the estuary, we picnicked with our 'duck, enjoying a later afternoon ceviche and some good local beer. I'm sorry to say the Germans weren't so impressed by Pike Stout—they're pilsner drinkers, after all—but the geoduck ceviche got gobbled up in no time. This ceviche, using the neck exclusively, was similar to the one I wrote about here, with the exception that we substituted mango for papaya. I'm thinking I might cook the body meat in a sweet and sour sauce tonight.

Sea-Flavor Noodles with Porcini

Regular readers know I have a thing for Fuchsia Dunlop (even if I have to look up Fuchsia each time I need to spell it). More to the point: I like Sichuan, and Dunlop's cookbook Land of Plenty is a prized resource on this front.

Not too long ago I would have scoffed at the idea of cooking Sichuan at home, but over time I've collected a small arsenal of Chinese pastes, oils, and other condiments, which is half the battle. Last month I made Fish-Fragrant Geoduck with Morels and in April Dry-fried Chicken with Fiddleheads.

This will probably be my last fling with spring porcini this year. Nearly constant mushroom hunting and cookery has put a strain on the household here at FOTL headquarters and it's time to start thinking about summer berries. Plus, I've been told to paint the house before our little piece of Appalachia sinks any deeper into the mire.

Sea-Flavor Noodles with Porcini is an adaptation of Dunlop's own adaptation of Mr. Xie's Sea-Flavor Noodles, taken from a noodle house near Sichuan University in Chengdu. I substituted shrimp paste (which I had on hand) for dried shrimp (which I didn't) and added fresh shrimp as well. For the mushrooms I used dried porcini in place of dried Chinese fungi as well as fresh porcini in place of button mushrooms. Dried matsutake would be another good choice, or dried shiitake.

I find it interesting that spring porcini has not found it's way into the cuisine of West Coast Asian restaurants. Maybe it's too expensive. Or maybe it just isn't considered authentic enough (there's that ridiculous word again). But the fact is, spring porcini lends itself quite well to Asian-style foods. It has a firm texture that one could almost call crunchy, and its mild flavor goes with almost anything—in fact, spring porcini has a tendency to take on the flavors of whatever it's cooked with, making it a great mushroom for tossing in the wok with a bunch of aromatic ingredients.

The other night I had dinner at Mashiko, the only sustainable sushi parlor in Seattle, with my friend Casson Trenor, author of Sustainable Sushi: A Guide to Saving the Oceans One Bite at a Time. Mashiko is amazing on so many levels I just don't know where to start, but suffice to say one can eat VERY well without raping the sea. Chef Hajime (@sushiwhore on Twitter) is an artist who cares about the resource. We brought him some porcini from a foraging trip the previous day and Hajime used the mushrooms along with scallops, clams, and oysters to make an intensely rich hot dish served in an enormous oyster shell. He pronounced the porcini "Good." Yes indeedy!

Here's the Sea-Flavor Noodles with Porcini recipe:

1 oz dried porcini
3 tbsp peanut oil
1/2 lb pork loin, thinly sliced
1/2 lb porcini, chopped
2 tbsp Chinese cooking wine (Shaoxing)
6 oz bamboo shoots
1 tsp shrimp paste
1 tbsp chili paste
1 quart chicken stock
1/2 lb shrimp
12 oz fresh Chinese noodles
3 scallions, minus white bulbs, chopped

1. Reconstitute dried mushrooms in a bowl with a cup of warm water. Set aside for 30 minutes. When mushrooms have reconstituted, wring out excess water back into bowl, reserving mushroom water for later.

2. Heat oil in wok or deep saute pan over high flame. Add sliced pork loin and cook for a few minutes until meat loses its color. Add fresh and reconstituted porcini and stir-fry another couple minutes. Splash with Shaoxing wine, stirring, and add bamboo shoots. Stir-fry another minute.

3. Add shrimp paste and chili paste, stirring well, then stock and reserved mushroom water. Bring to boil, then reduce heat and simmer for an hour until pork is tender.

4. When meat is ready, season soup with salt and pepper to taste. Add shrimp and allow to cook for a couple minutes before serving. Boil noodles in separate pot or simply add to bowls and ladle over hot soup. Garnish with scallions.

Tagliolini with Porcini Sauce

We celebrated a friend's birthday the other night at one of my favorite recent additions to the Seattle restaurant scene, a cozy little trattoria called Cascina Spinasse. Four hours later, after multiple courses and wines—and a midnight votive incident that luckily didn't torch the place—we stumbled home. But the next day I just had to call the restaurant to ask them about their porcini pasta. Amazingly, the chef answered the phone and gave me step-by-step instructions.

In the tradition of typical Piedmontese food, the dish is simple yet flavorful, more than the sum of its parts. We made it at home that night and I'm happy to say the re-creation did the original proud. You don't need gobs of porcini to make this pasta—a half-pound is more than enough for two, and you can get by with a quarter-pound.

Martha liked it because no cream was involved. Fresh pasta is essential. Every time I make my own pasta I vow to never go back to the industrial-made stuff. We decided on tagliolini because that felt like the right size to go with the finely chopped porcini. Two other important points: First, caramelize the porcini until lightly browned but don't overcook the mushrooms into hard little nuggets; and second, use the best chicken stock you can get (or make).

10 oz fresh pasta
1/2 lb fresh porcini (or less), cut into 1/4-inch cubes
1 small yellow onion, chopped
2-3 cloves garlic, chopped
2 tbsp olive oil, divided
1/2 cup white wine
1 cup or more chicken stock (or vegetable)
2 tbsp butter
small handful parsley, chopped
salt and pepper

1. Saute cubed porcini over medium heat in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until caramelized. Remove from pan.

2. Saute onion and garlic in 1 tablespoon of olive oil until soft. Return porcini to pan and stir together. Deglaze with white wine, cooking until nearly evaporated.

3. Add chicken stock, a few splashes at a time, allowing sauce to cook down before adding more liquid. Adjust for seasoning.

4. Just before pasta is ready, add 2 tablespoons of butter to sauce. Toss pasta with sauce and parsley.

It's that easy. Spring porcini are mild flavored, much more so than their fall brethren. Caramelizing helps to concentrate the flavor and the wine-chicken stock reduction is savory without overwhelming the delicate flavor of the mushrooms. This will be a dish we go back to each year when the spring porcini are popping in the mountains.

Elderflower Syrup

My new bumper sticker: I brake for champagne cordials.

The other day while taking Hank and Holly on a mushroom odyssey I surprised a few drivers behind me in a curvy stretch of canyon by yanking my van off the road at speed and coming to a dusty stop in the dirt. A flat? Sudden engine trouble? Naw, I just happened to spy the creamy white flowers of a blue elderberry tree on the roadside.

The blue elderberry (Sambucus caerulea) is a prolific bloomer on the east slope of the Cascades where it inhabits canyons, hillsides, and farm country, often near water. River corridors are a good place to look for this variety up and down the West Coast. Other varieties are common across the continental U.S. and throughout much of the temperate and sub-tropical world.



Last year I made elderberry syrup. This year I wanted to catch the flowering so I could make an equally distinctive though more delicate concoction. The thick berry syrup goes great with yogurt and ice cream; the flower variety is perfect for a refreshing summer drink or, even better, to enliven a sparkling flute of prosecco.

Everyone has their own preferred method for making the syrup, but besides the addition of exotic ingredients the main difference is the time you allow the flowers to steep. I used Hank's recipe as a guide, eschewing the citric acid (two lemons seemed plenty, and anyway I'd used up my stash of citric acid on Dandelion Wine earlier this spring) and, in a happy accident, steeped my flowers for five days instead of two or three. The extra time only strengthened the subtle flavor without having any funky side effects, though you might exercise caution in really hot locales.

Definitely use a cheese cloth when straining your liquid. It's an unavoidable fact that little critters like to make their homes in eldflower clusters. The recipe below makes about a quart of syrup. I canned two half-pints and refrigerated the other pint. It will be interesting to see if the canning process had any effect on the delicate flavor.

20 large elderflower clusters
1 quart water
4 cups sugar
Juice of 2 lemons
Zest of 2 lemons

1. Trim flowers into a large bowl and try to remove as much of the stem as possible (most of the elderberry tree other than the flowers and berries is toxic). Rolling the flowers between thumb and forefinger is a good way to separate stem from flower. Continue to pick through flower pile, removing as many little stems as possible.

2. Add lemon zest and juice to bowl.

3. Bring quart of water and sugar to boil, stirring to make sure sugar is well dissolved.

4. Pour liquid over flower and lemon mixture. Stir.

5. Cover bowl with a kitchen towel and allow elderflowers to steep for 5 days.

6. Strain through cheese cloth and fine mesh strainer. Refrigerate syrup or process in hot water bath for 10 minutes.

Cheers!

Third photo by www.heyserphoto.com

Little Pigs of Spring

As feared, the sudden warming trend in my region caused a massive blowout of spring porcini ("little pigs" in Italian) at the lower elevations. I know you PacNor'westers have been craving sun and wondering if summer would ever show its face, but the same weather patterns that conspired to make this an epic morel year have put the kibbosh on our spring kings. Some of my patches haven't produced at all this year while others are putting out a fraction of their usual production—and now one of my best patches is a worm-riddled mess.

Such conditions test the mushroom hunter. My advice: Know your habitat. Identify microclimates that will fare better in off years. As always, try to catch the vanguard of the first flush at a given elevation. I picked this one patch for the last three weeks. Week One, when I would have expected a good fruiting, only a few scattered buttons showed, amounting to maybe five pounds. Week Two, which I'll write about more in depth in a moment, saw more of the same, with the buttons still trying to pop, a ten-pound day. Now I'm remembering those first two weeks fondly. Yesterday, Week Three, was my third trip to the same patch. The last few days we've become reacquainted with that shy fireball in the sky and I had an inkling of what I might find. Sure enough, porcini littered the woods, poundage of it, old flags and young buttons alike wormed out beyond repair. It was a sad affair. I picked about 30 pounds, maybe a tenth of what I saw, and of that three-quarters went either straight into the dryer or into the garbage.

Mushroom hunters live by the weather and suffer by it.

David Aurora says the spring kings (Boletus rex-veris) fruit in most of the mountain ranges west of the Rockies, including the northern Sierra, Cascades, and Blues. As far as I know there are no records of spring porcini in the coastal mountains. They seem to require drier conditions. In the Cascades we only find them on the eastern slopes, usually when the trilliums have turned from white to purple and the morels are tailing off.

With all varieties of porcini, I look for the heavier timber, particularly true firs and spruce. The sort of cutover and abused landscapes in which morels flourish don't seem as fruitful for the boletes, and this is one of the reasons I enjoy hunting porcini even more than morels. A day of not finding porcini is still a beautiful hike on the sunny side of the mountains. I've seen lots of wildlife while looking for spring kings, from big bucks to angry goshawks. The other day at dusk I watched a fox saunter across a logging road and into the woods as if taking an evening stroll. He could have worn a sweater vest and I wouldn't have been surprised in the least.

This year I had the pleasure of introducing my Sacramento friends Hank Shaw and Holly Heyser to porcini hunting. You might know them for their excellent, award-winning blogs, Hunter Angler Gardener Cook and NorCal Cazadora. Hank and Holly spend a lot of time in the bush with a shotgun or rifle at the ready, so mushroom hunting was an instant hit. So much is the same: the need to understand habitat and ecosystems; a willingness to slow down and allow the natural world to inform you; the thrill of the chase; and the addiction that springs from that first brush with success.

We visited a few of my regular spots and it was clear that the season was way behind schedule. Areas that would normally sport lots of flags by now—blown-out and maggot-ridden porcini that tell you you're in the right place—were just beginning to produce little buttons hiding under the duff. These buttons, sometimes called "mushrumps" by pot hunters, are known as #1's to commercial foragers because they're graded the highest on the desirability scale and earn the most money. They're firm, with caps that haven't fully opened up and white or grey pores. These are the ones to slice thinly and eat fresh with a salad. Unlike most wild mushrooms, young porcini can be eaten uncooked in small amounts. The flavor is quite a bit different this way, and surprisingly un-fungal.

That night in camp we ended up garnishing a salad of wild violets with fresh porcini and a simple dressing of olive oil and chinese rice wine. We cooked up Italian sausages in water infused with fir tips along with a saute of onions, green peppers, morels, and porcini. The finished dish was simple the way camping fare ought to be, yet bursting with the sort of local and seasonal ingredients you find in fine restaurants. Luckily for Hank and me, for dessert I only brought a small bottle of whiskey, so the next morning we were up and at 'em again.



When I got home with my catch I decided to imitate a dish I'd had at the Herbfarm the night before our porcini outing. This was my first visit to one of the Northwest's most celebrated restaurants and all I can say is the nine-course meal with accompanying wine flights was truly awesome. Our host Ron Zimmerman is no namby-pamby on the pour either. (Next time we'll book a room at the Inn.) Marty called it the single best meal of her life. I decided it was in my top two of all time, neck-and-neck with last holiday's pilgrimage to Eleven Madison in New York. But the Herbfarm surpassed that renowned eatery at the local angle, with scrupulous attention paid to seasonal ingredients from nearby places.

For my home-cooked version of an Herbfarm dish, I roasted porcini two ways. I chopped up the stems and caps of a few larger, soft-fleshed specimens to make a sauce, and also thinly sliced a couple buttons for the garnish. The sauce I ladled on the plate and topped with a fillet of wild Alaskan chinook and sauteed fava beans; the roasted porcini buttons decorated the dish.

Roasted Porcini Sauce



This is a good use for those larger, floppier kings that have gone soft in the flesh. Usually such specimens are bug-infested, and even decent ones are only suitable as dryers, but occasionally you find mature boletes with yellow pores that have somehow avoided the flies. These are perfect for making sauce.

1 lb porcini, cleaned and cut into small cubes
1 handful dried porcini
olive oil
several sprigs fresh thyme, chopped
several springs fresh oregano, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/2 cup white wine
chicken stock (optional)
salt and pepper

1. Reconstitute dried porcini in 1 cup warm water. Set aside for 30 minutes. When ready, wring out excess water back into container and reserve mushroom stock for later.

2. Saute shallot and garlic in a couple tablespoons of olive oil until soft. Stir in both fresh and reconstituted porcini. Cook, stirring, several minutes until lightly browned, using more olive oil if necessary. Add fresh herbs, a few grindings of pepper, and a generous amount of salt and cook another minute.

3. Deglaze with wine. I used a Riesling to get a sweeter edge. When wine is mostly cooked off, slowly add mushroom stock.

4. Blend mixture with an immersion blender (or use a food processor). Finish with chicken stock (optional) to desired consistency.

Wild Salmon with Favas and Roasted Porcini Sauce

For the final plate you'll want to broil a good cut of wild salmon (10 minutes per inch of thickness), roast a button or two of prime, thinly-sliced porcini, and saute the favas. I roasted my porcini in a cast iron skillet with olive oil, a couple smashed cloves of garlic, and a few rough-cut springs of thyme, plus seasoning. When I'd gotten a nice browning on both sides I tossed in a pat of butter and let it foam in the pan, then removed the porcini to a bowl. I quickly sauteed the favas in the same pan as the salmon finished, then arranged all the elements on the plate. Seasonal goodness.



I've written numerous posts about spring porcini. Click these links for:

• more info, including a video of spring porcini hunting
  
• Grilled Porcini Salad
  
• Pickled Porcini
  
• drying porcini
  
• freezing spring porcini
  
• Alaskan Cod with Porcini & Chard Saute
  
• Fettucini with Porcini, Pancetta & Tomato Cream Sauce
  
• The Poor Man's Steak, my Oct. '08 article in Seattle Metro
  
• Hank Shaw's Porcini-O-Rama of delicious recipes

Morel Madness

Sometimes Marty thinks I dreamed up this whole Fat of the Land thing so I'd have an excuse to spend more time outdoors. I'm not going to argue with that theory. Seems like I've been logging more nights in the woods lately than at home. As a result, here at FOTL headquarters we're way behind on bringing you the latest adventures in the field and in the kitchen.

The cool, wet spring has produced an epic morel mushroom year in the Pacific Northwest—and I've been only too happy to harvest my share. Flush after flush of naturals keeps flooding the mountains, with multiple flushes sometimes at the same elevation. I'm finding so many naturals that I'm not even bothering to work the burns. The dryer is running overtime. In fact, I had to upgrade my homemade system to a store-bought Nesco dehydrator to handle the volume. Good times.

Over the Memorial Day weekend we went looking for sun, camping on the far eastern flank of the Cascades in what is high desert badlands. It was one of those classic Northwest beer commercials as we assembled for this group shot in down jackets and other winter gear. Even in desert canyons you can find an oasis of wild foods. We came upon on a large patch of miner's lettuce that provided our salad greens for the weekend, and closer to the pass we went on a family hike and found morels in abundance on the elk trails.

Our friends Tip and Bridget whumped up a killer morel pasta dinner. I don't have the exact details but it went something like this: chopped red onion and morels sauteed in butter, deglazed with red wine, finished with fresh sage and heavy cream and tossed with parmesan and fettucini.

The following weekend proved just as bountiful as we moved up in elevation to find the freshest morels. At one point I stumbled on a blowdown and figured there had to be a morel or two. Sure enough, one after another pointed me up the slope until I realized an area smaller than a football field was loaded with more than a hundred of the sneaky fellers.

There's always a catch. The weather has been a boon to morels but our spring king season is looking like a bust. The boletes need warmth to pop. This year they're a couple weeks late and I'm afraid the main flush will happen all at once and then the season will quickly wind down with a crop of wormed-out porcini. Luckily I managed to harvest a bunch at the very beginning. More on that in my next post.

Bracken Fern: To Eat or Not To Eat?

The other day I ate a known carcinogen—a juicy char-grilled burger. I'm not alone in my cancer-baiting, certainly not this time of year when hamburgers and hotdogs are mainstays of the backyard barbecue.

But to eat a handful of stir-fried bracken fern is to seemingly court disaster in some quarters. You see, bracken (Pteridium aquilinum) is also known to contain carcinogens, specifically a substance called ptaquiloside. Never mind that bracken has been a food staple of Native Americans for centuries if not millennia, or that the Japanese also have a yen for this common fern and consider it a delicacy of spring. In fact, we might just call out these two populations on purpose, since studies have suggested their higher rates of intestinal cancer could be linked to bracken.

On the other hand, there are plenty who are suspicious of inconclusive studies and the advice of nutritionists. In his book Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants, Steve Brill says: "I wouldn't be afraid of eating reasonable quantities of wild [bracken] fiddleheads during their short season." And on his web site, Florida forager Green Deane says: "I think nearly everything causes cancer and I am willing to risk a few fiddleheads with butter once or twice a spring, which is about as often as I can collect enough in this warm place."

What to do?

I've been avoiding bracken for years because of these studies, but in the end I'd heard enough positive reports from trusted sources that I decided to give the fern a try. I'm not planning to eat huge quantities of bracken anytime soon, but to banish this ancient food from the table strikes me as equally rash.

Most of us have seen bracken before. It's a hardy fern that sometimes covers acres of land. Generally it emerges later in spring than other fern species. Its fiddleheads—if they can be called that, since they hardly resemble the typical fiddlehead form of the ostrich or lady fern—are claw-shaped, like a hawk that's squeezing its fist around around an unlucky mouse. Collect bracken when it's still tightly coiled, about six to eight inches in length; the picture above shows a specimen that is just slightly past its prime for the pot.

How I Cooked My Bracken

My friend Jon Rowley passed along these instructions from Seattle's premier sushi chef, who serves bracken at his eponymous restaurant, Shiro's.

Salt a pot of water generously and bring it to boil. Stir in the bracken, kill the heat, and allow the water to cool. This will take a little while. Next wash off the bracken under cool running water before serving. For my dish I gave the bracken an additional stir-fry with spring porcini mushrooms, a little ground pork, and splashes of sesame oil, soy sauce, and Chinese cooking wine (Xiaoxing).

The flavor is delicate. I liken it to the taste of kale or chard in the package of thin asparagus.

So what about you? Do you eat bracken or have an opinion about its edibility or lack thereof? I'd like to hear from you.