It always happens this time of year. The air warms up, the water falls out of the sky, and sprouts start poking their eyes through the dirt. In addition to the spring green that shows its face, I find myself getting all moral. Morel more like it. This is the small window of time in late April mid May when the delicacy wild morels start showing up in the market. Despite their outrageous price tag, I cannot resist at least one moral meal a week. I mean, with all the immoral meals that I indulge in i think the least I could do would be to have one moral meal a year- If I'm lucky maybe two.
This is a two Morel meal year. Last week my friend came over for dinner. I stopped by the farmer's market by my office and picked up a basket of tasty Morel morsels. My friend had not ever had Morels . Don't blame those without morels, they just haven't been brought up right. Thankfully my parents saw the importance of morels and early in life my dad took me morel hunting out in the woods. We gathered up a whopping three morels and took them home to be deep fried.
Those morels have followed me through college and adult life. As my mom always reminded me: don't forget where you came from. I sure haven't forgotten and am thankful for her introduction to morels!
Here is my standby morel meal I like to eat it as an appetizer or put on a piece of toasted baugette:
-Soak morels in room temp water then drain( to clean and get all the grit out of them)
- Quarter or half each mushroom depending on size
- heat olive oil in pan, add chopped shallots, then add morels
- De-glaze with white wine
- saute until mushrooms are soft, add butter to taste, also can add thyme, rosemary etc for additional flavor, Salt and pepper, a splash of lemon juice also adds a nice touch.
- time is of the essence. Last time i was tlaking to my friend and kind of forgot about the morels ( thats what happens with morels when you are fast and loose with them). They turned out great. Secret- plenty of butter
Variating from my morels:Today I decided to deviate from my years of morel living and add a twist. Instead of just eating them by themselves, I added them to fresh made pasta.
-Make fresh pasta
- Prepare Morels as described above, add peas and add cream to create a cream sauce.
Yum! morel pasta primavera.
Cheers to another morel year!
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