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lesged
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« Reply #6 on: September 21, 2009, 08:17:43 PM » |
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Alan,
Most people I know use Chicken Mushrooms (CM), Polyporus sulphurus, in their pasta sauces and so do we, but we know other ways to cook them and have a few suggestions. If the smallest fronds of the CM you collect are tender and moist to the touch, then they are excellent to use for an omelet. Save the rest of the CM for other uses, see below.
Bill, a colleague at GTE, loved chicken mushrooms and its related species, Hen in the Woods (HitW). Polyporus frondosus. He went out often on weekends in the fall searching for them. He started collecting mushrooms as a kid, when his Italian born father took him and his brother on Sundays to location cluster of CM. HitW, Honey Mushrooms (HM) Armillaria mellea and Oyster Mushrooms (OT) Pleurotus ostreatus, that he had previously spotted during the weekdays on the daily train as a railroad worker.
Bill’s brother Frank also cooked his chicken mushrooms in the oven with green or red peppers. We sampled one of Frank’s dishes at a meeting of the Boston Mycological Club where guests brought samples of their special mushroom dishes. His dish was awesome. Unfortunately, I don’t have his recipe.
Julia Child was there, as one of the members, but I can’t remember what she brought or whether she was a special guest. I had my camera, natch, and Frank asked me if I’d take a photo of him and Julia. I asked her and she graciously agreed. He put his arm around his food goddess, which she took in stride. He was a pretty big guy, but she was taller (6’2”) I sent him the color print taken with my Canon A1. Somewhere, I have that negative, unless I gave it to him.
Claudia’s basic recipe for her meatless pasta sauce has the following ingredients:
Olive oil, onions, garlic, celery, tomato sauce (bottled jar is OK but ones with olive oil is preferred). basil (fresh if available) or oregano and salt and pepper. While cooking mushrooms she adds broth (chicken or vegetable) or, waters she cooked her veggies, clams, shrimps, lobster in, or white wine
Grate a good Parmegian cheese over your pasta at the table. Btw, don’t rinse your pasta after cooking, but do salt the water. The quality of pasta makes such a difference. If you can find De Cecco or Del Verde they will enrich any pasta sauce you make no end. It's worth the extra money. 1 lb. box yields enough pasta for 2 meals of each time giving us each a hearty servings. We make a meal out of just pasta with sauce and a mixed salad Red wine is a must for me. Claudia is a tee totaler and drinks sparkling mineral water instead. Well, we often end the meal with fresh fruit.
Sorry for the long delay in responding.
Buona fortuna! Good luck!
Les
P.S Honey mushrooms Armillaria mellea. are also found in abundance in the fall as well as the oyster mushrooms Pleurotus ostreatus. I’ve found them in winter and even frozen on trees and when they thawed they were edible and not tough.
Note: There are no poisonous lookalikes to oyster mushrooms that grow in North America, however Omphalotus nidiformis is a toxic lookalike that is found in Australia and Japan.
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