This is valuable, thanks!
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Occasionally these fresh morels show up at my local specialty grocer (I notice them about every other year), and I always buy them despite the price, because they seem to be light and for $10 or so you can get enough to use for a couple of people.
I have noticed that sometimes (once for me) there are extremely small bugs living in them which I only noticed after they were in my fridge for a day. They were so small and so numerous that they couldn’t be cleaned. I don’t know if anyone else has ever noticed this or maybe I got a bad batch.
Yep, mostly normal for foraged mushrooms with open caps. Between the deep exterior crenellations and the tall and pointed-end interiors, morels are hard to clean.
What I do is slice the cap from the point down, halvsies, before trying to clean.
But if you find them already clean, I like to fry or saute the caps whole–that way they stay plumper and crisper. That just seems more luxurious to me. Oh, now I need to deep-fry some!
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I have good luck finding morels, so I get a little yawny over the usual prep.
One trick I’ve learned, when I get a good haul, is morel poppers. It’s a hollow mushroom, so why not fill the hollow part. I’ll use cream cheese and roasted garlic for the filling. Egg/crumbs, repeat, deep fry at 375.
I like to wash them in an open pot of water, then take the water and dump it over a dead elm near my home, where I’ve already found some in previous years.
Be sure they’re dry before you try to egg/ crumb them. Love to try to sell them, but everyone is morel rich at the same time, so demand goes way down.
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I do beer can chicken all the time, love it. Is it that different from a chicken on the grill done any of the ways talked about above . . . not really, but it’s very easy, crispy skin all around, and no chance of sticking to grates or ripping skin/etc by having to flip and move the chicken - in that sense, it’s much more “set it up and leave it” than other methods.
- I don’t always use beer cans (I don’t drink much beer) so in my house it’s often a seltzer can.
- I do keep the can 1/3 filled with some type of liquid (typically wine since that is what I drink), I don’t think it imparts much flavor regardless of what you use (beer, wine, water etc).
As far as prep, I do what I’d do roasting a chicken any other way - I like it simple, so for me it’s salt and pepper all over and rest in the fridge for a few hours.
The only “fail” that can happen (or that has heppened to me) is having the chicken go full inferno - which is tragic. I do recommend cooking over indirect heat! If the chicken is over heat (e.g. a burner on a gas grill, even if on low) - as the fat starts to render out of the chicken, it drips, if the flame that the dripping causes gets high enough it can literally set the whole bird on fire - think cremation - and you open the lid and see a big ol’ chicken fireball.
I do think it creates a great crispy skin all around the bird - no stress during cooking really, no flipping, etc - and IMHO creates a wonderfully crispy skin all around the bird.
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Totally. On a grate set in a pan, there’s always a little steaming action going on. You can rotate, of course, but the BCC is effortless in terms of roasting all over.
After seeing your pic, I think someone should offer a BCC rack shaped like a commode…
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I just like the way they look.
Personally, I don’t get the hype for morels. IF you get some fresh ones, make sure to soak them in water. The one time I picked up a quart at the local farmers market I had to change the water 3 times to eliminate the thousands of bugs/ants they were infested with. I found the flavor to be incredibly mild, especially compared to other mushrooms like chanterelles, or maitake, or porcini, or … yeah, most other mushrooms. You’ll get more flavor from dried morels that you reconstitute, as you can then use the soaking liquid to add flavor to whatever dish you’re making with them. Bonus: no armies of ants 
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This is fantastic! Returning to our gifted kamado grill soon, and it’s prime grilling season. Your tips are very helpful 
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I had the same experience (see my reply to @ZivBnd). It wasn’t pretty 
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Which kind of makes me wonder what you are getting with your morels if you buy them in a cafe… If it takes that much effort to get rid of the little critters, maybe the prep team gives it a wash and calls it a day. They might be unrecognizable after being cooked and who will know?
Definitely one of those things you do not want to find out, but it may be one of the things that happen all the time and we just never realize it.
Warning! The link below is a bit of an eyeopener. Not sure of its accuracy, but the title of the link kind of indicates the direction it is going…
https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/04/health/insect-rodent-filth-in-food-wellness/index.html
Ummmm… I’m not clicking on that link 
I’ve occasionally missed a few specks of dirt on button mushrooms that I would only notice once they were already in the sauté pan in the past, and I’m still alive. Hordes of ants and other small bugs can really ruin your appetite, OTOH.
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Some would say subtle. Maybe like a pinot noir.
I think I am in the same camp. I like the texture of the dried, but the flavor is only ok. For the price, I prefer dried shiitakes. I have purchased fresh morels exactly once. I needed to soak them in salt water because when I got them home, some of them had bugs and worms. The flavor was good, but not enough to justify the effort. That being said, I would try them again. Maybe a smaller amount, so the soaking and cleaning was less onerous (I bought a pound last time…it was spendy!).
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For Father’s Day I was treated to lunch at Chez Panisse and enjoyed pasta with morels in a cream sauce. It was delicious but yes the mushroom flavor was subtle.
But I just love that restaurant. Have only ever dined in the upstairs cafe (three times now) and only in the past 3 years despite going to college nearby and living within driving distance for the last decade. It’s one of the rare fine dining experiences that’s worth every penny (though the dinner menu downstairs is pricier and I haven’t tried that yet).
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Could well be. Don’t care much for pinot noir, either.
Well, I took delivery of this set today. It’s actually huge–handle to handle, it’s 17", and the pan floor is >15. The suppository end is a friction fit with the liner, so I expect it will come off with the bird, but that’s OK. Pretty decent thickness.
I’ll post photos of my first try…
I agree. They’re just the easiest to ID without fear of death. Even poisonous false morels don’t look much like a real morel. I find morels and I’m happy. I find boletes, chanterelles, hericium erinaceus and I’m thrilled. People find a lot of morels by me when in season; but most just flour them and fry in butter. Snore.
Best use I’ve seen is making poppers by taking advantage of the hollow inside for the popper guts.
I’ll eat them fresh, but I usually find 5-10 lbs. , so I dry them. BUT, drying them, one needn’t worry about the critters living in them, as they’re all dead at the bottom of the dehydrator. Then, I pulverize and use the powder in sauces and the like.
Well, yesterday was the maiden voyage of roasting a chicken in the Napoleon purpose-built beercan setup. The chicken definitely stayed put, and the pan was a good fit in the BGE.
The results were a little disappointing. The bird was underbrowned–only the collar approached what I wanted. And the “seated” end got almost none.
I wanted to gauge how much steaming would happen, so I cut the top out of a beer can. I filled to half with white wine and pineapple juice, and stood the can inside the suppository. When I pulled the bird, the liquid was all there, and it wasn’t even hot. This surprised me because the Egg ran two hours at 375F, and I goosed it to to 500F trying to crisp the skin.
At least the potatoes surrounding the bird were the way I’d hoped.
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Sorry that does seem disappointing. It’s strange that the liquid wasn’t even hot after all that time.
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