Monday, September 26, 2011
September - Lederer park walk
Walked along the lower trail at Lederer park, but I didn't find anything besides these jack o'lantern mushrooms through the branches. I think there may be wild leeks there though...I'll have to return in the spring. There are definitely berries.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
September - Bear's head tooth mushroom
Amanda gets credit for finding this mushroom too.
Hericium americanum is a strange looking fungi. It resembles white coral growth or something out of Jim Henson's Dark Crystal movie. This one was hanging under a fallen log.
We baked this up (I set the oven for 350 and baked them for about 10 minutes, but next time I think I will lower the temp and bake them longer) and dipped it in garlic butter.
Now, to be fair, I can eat almost anything dipped in garlic butter. However, both Amanda and I were very pleased with the taste of these strange mushrooms. They have a seafood-like texture and a similar taste as well. If breaded and fried, I believe they would taste something like calamari.
Fun to find and fun to eat. Definitely something worth bringing in if you find it.
Hericium americanum is a strange looking fungi. It resembles white coral growth or something out of Jim Henson's Dark Crystal movie. This one was hanging under a fallen log.
We baked this up (I set the oven for 350 and baked them for about 10 minutes, but next time I think I will lower the temp and bake them longer) and dipped it in garlic butter.
Now, to be fair, I can eat almost anything dipped in garlic butter. However, both Amanda and I were very pleased with the taste of these strange mushrooms. They have a seafood-like texture and a similar taste as well. If breaded and fried, I believe they would taste something like calamari.
Fun to find and fun to eat. Definitely something worth bringing in if you find it.
September - Black Trumpet Mushrooms
We were out in Bald Eagle State Park and Amanda found these black trumpet mushrooms, Craterellus fallax. They were difficult to see, but once she spotted one, we were able to find more and filled a bag.
These mushrooms look like old, rotting leaves or rotting mushrooms until you get close enough to inspect them. They were growing up through moss on the trail about 40 yards uphill from a stream. We brought them home, cleaned them, and followed this recipe that I found here.
Black Trumpet Linguine - recipe from the New York Times, adapted from "A passion for Mushrooms" by Antonio Carluccio
Serves 4, 15 minutes
Salt
1/2 pound fresh black trumpets
6 Tbsp. butter
12 ounces linguine
freshly grated nutmeg
freshly ground white pepper
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
3-4 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives
Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Plunge mushrooms into cold water several times to remove grit. Drain well and squeeze dry. Chop and set aside.
Heat 2 Tbsp. butter in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and sprinkle with salt. Cook, stirring until well wilted and tender, about 10 minutes.
When mushrooms are dearly done, cook pasta until al dente. Remove about 1/4 cup cooking water and set aside. Drain pasta and transfer to a warm serving bowl. Add remaining butter, mushrooms, grated nutmeg and white pepper. Toss to mix, adding reserved water as needed. Add cheese, and toss until pasta is coated and ingredients are integrated. Sprinkle with chives and serve with additional cheese if desired.
It was absolutely delicious!
The mushrooms have a wonderful taste that infused the pasta.
We will definitely seek these beauties out again. They may look ominous and may even have the inaccurate nickname "mushroom of death", but they easily made it to top of my fall weather finds this year.
These mushrooms look like old, rotting leaves or rotting mushrooms until you get close enough to inspect them. They were growing up through moss on the trail about 40 yards uphill from a stream. We brought them home, cleaned them, and followed this recipe that I found here.
Black Trumpet Linguine - recipe from the New York Times, adapted from "A passion for Mushrooms" by Antonio Carluccio
Serves 4, 15 minutes
Salt
1/2 pound fresh black trumpets
6 Tbsp. butter
12 ounces linguine
freshly grated nutmeg
freshly ground white pepper
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
3-4 Tbsp. chopped fresh chives
Bring a large pot of salted water to a rolling boil. Plunge mushrooms into cold water several times to remove grit. Drain well and squeeze dry. Chop and set aside.
Heat 2 Tbsp. butter in a large saute pan over medium-high heat. Add mushrooms and sprinkle with salt. Cook, stirring until well wilted and tender, about 10 minutes.
When mushrooms are dearly done, cook pasta until al dente. Remove about 1/4 cup cooking water and set aside. Drain pasta and transfer to a warm serving bowl. Add remaining butter, mushrooms, grated nutmeg and white pepper. Toss to mix, adding reserved water as needed. Add cheese, and toss until pasta is coated and ingredients are integrated. Sprinkle with chives and serve with additional cheese if desired.
It was absolutely delicious!
The mushrooms have a wonderful taste that infused the pasta.
We will definitely seek these beauties out again. They may look ominous and may even have the inaccurate nickname "mushroom of death", but they easily made it to top of my fall weather finds this year.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
September - Central PA Wild Mushroom Club
This past weekend I went out to Whipple Dam State Park to hunt for wild mushrooms with the Central PA Wild Mushroom Club. There were several highly experienced mushroomers there who led different groups into the woods to search for a wide variety of mushrooms. It was extremely informative and a fun walk in the woods.
As soon as we arrived, a few members found a couple hens of the woods mushrooms. The above picture is not one of the ones that we found, but it gives an idea of what they look like and the general size. This was the main objective of the outing as there are many hens out at this time and they are apparently very tasty.
I didn't find any myself, but I did find three interesting varieties.
The first was the Jack o' Lantern Mushroom (Omphalotus olearius).
Again this isn't my picture, but this is what they looked like. These are a poisonous mushroom, but they do have a beautiful color and they have a rather unique feature. They apparently glow in the dark! I didn't get a chance to see this in action, but they are slightly phosphorescent and if you place them in complete darkness, they glow.
I also found Granulated Boletes. We found them under a white pine in clumps. In order to eat them, it is sometimes recommended to peel the cap. Some people have reported that the slimy coating has a laxative effect. Bill Russell, a leader of the club, said that he has never had this problem, but I went ahead and peeled them anyway.
I haven't eaten these yet because I didn't want to eat more than one kind of new mushroom at a time.
The mushroom that I did try was the "Small Chanterelles" (Craterellus ignicolor). They look like a bright orange true chanterelle; however they have a trumpet like center as they age and are hollow near the top. They do have the false gills.
I fried these up in a little butter and they were very tasty. They also had an almost citrus smell to them.
As soon as we arrived, a few members found a couple hens of the woods mushrooms. The above picture is not one of the ones that we found, but it gives an idea of what they look like and the general size. This was the main objective of the outing as there are many hens out at this time and they are apparently very tasty.
I didn't find any myself, but I did find three interesting varieties.
The first was the Jack o' Lantern Mushroom (Omphalotus olearius).
Again this isn't my picture, but this is what they looked like. These are a poisonous mushroom, but they do have a beautiful color and they have a rather unique feature. They apparently glow in the dark! I didn't get a chance to see this in action, but they are slightly phosphorescent and if you place them in complete darkness, they glow.
I also found Granulated Boletes. We found them under a white pine in clumps. In order to eat them, it is sometimes recommended to peel the cap. Some people have reported that the slimy coating has a laxative effect. Bill Russell, a leader of the club, said that he has never had this problem, but I went ahead and peeled them anyway.
I haven't eaten these yet because I didn't want to eat more than one kind of new mushroom at a time.
The mushroom that I did try was the "Small Chanterelles" (Craterellus ignicolor). They look like a bright orange true chanterelle; however they have a trumpet like center as they age and are hollow near the top. They do have the false gills.
I fried these up in a little butter and they were very tasty. They also had an almost citrus smell to them.
July - Oyster Mushrooms
I've been looking for these for a while now as I mountain biked and hiked through the woods. I found a few once before in June, just a few young ones, and they were really tasty. I found these ones in August 2011 on a tree on the way back home from Fisherman's Paradise outside Bellefonte. They were growing up the back of an oak.
Amanda and I fried a few. We dipped them in egg whites and then covered them in Panko bread crumbs and fried them in oil. They were really delicious, though perhaps frying isn't the healthiest method.
With a majority of them, I tried a recipe for oyster mushroom chowder. The recipes I found were very basic and I explored other chowder recipes (oyster/clam) for ideas, having heard that these mushrooms could be used in seafood recipes. I settled on a recipe with red peppers and bacon added to the chowder along with liquid smoke and Tabasco sauce. I won't give the details here because I wasn't overly pleased with the results. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't wonderful. The mushrooms are great, but next time I'll go a different direction than chowder.
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