I love pasta, especially with mushrooms (any kind, frankly).
It’s a special occasion dish for me.
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As I mentioned, I’ve had a morel risotto. There biggish ‘chunks’ in it and a whole one on top. And then the chef drizzled some truffle oil over…just a tiny bit.
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Oh yes, i looovve morels! I do still give them a little hit of soy sauce.
I made dinner for a mushroom loving friend for her birthday a while back and made a mushroom risotto with a broth i made from a bunch of dried mushrooms, dried powdered mushrooms stirred into the risotto, and then butter soy sauteed mushrooms on top of each serving. Good stuff.
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Well that was a disappointment.
We cleaned the morels in salted water, rinsed, sliced, sautéed in olive oil/butter, hit ‘em with a splash of soy, and…nothin’. No aroma, no flavor. Nothing.
I guess I should have known that “wild morels from Central California” were, essentially, a fool’s gold in that fungi are not exactly known for flourishing in what is essentially a desert.
/sad face/
Well, without knowing the quality of what you started with, I’m going to guess that you “over-processed.” For me, this is the ultimate product where less is more.
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Sorry to hear. But it sounds like at least you didn’t have to deal with the ant farm invasion I had in my bowl when I soaked my batch.
That’s a bummer. IIRC, my fresh batch of morels wasn’t nearly as aromatic as I had hoped, either.
Sometimes buying dried shrooms and reconstituting them gives you better results.
But the king trumpets should be great, no?
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Just to report back. Found morels at WF this morning for ‘only’ $30/#, down from $50 last year. About half the size of what I prefer. Bought about 10 for $2.50. LOL
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I bought $ 3.50 worth today . I got a handful and they are smallish . I’m not going to wash them . Just toss into the sauté pan with butter .
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Even with the small size I’ll still cut in half lengthwise.
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I’ll do that .
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Took this photo yesterday at the market. €4,50 per 50 gram. (=1.69oz according to online conversion)
I prefer dried.
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What a beautiful selection of shrooms!
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You prefer dried mushrooms to fresh?
Yes, certain mushrooms I prefer dried. Such as black trumpets, ceps and morels. I find these mushrooms have a more intense taste and smell when dried.
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“I don’t know what you bought so I’ll assume you fucked them up”. Nice.
She just detailed what she did, which was clean and rinse.
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I feel the same about morels and shiitake.
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Were you replying to me? I didn’t write or imply that.
`[quote=“C70, post:35, topic:4306, full:true”]
“I don’t know what you bought so I’ll assume you fucked them up”. Nice.
She just detailed what she did, which was clean and rinse.
[/quote]
`[quote=“catholiver, post:37, topic:4306, full:true”]
Were you replying to me? I didn’t write or imply that.
[/quote]
`
Kinda did
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Well, if you or anyone took it that way, I apologize. In reading this:
“We cleaned the morels in salted water, rinsed, sliced, sautéed in olive oil/butter, hit 'em with a splash of soy,”
I speculated that cleaning in salt water and rinsing and soy was too much. I’ve been eating them every spring that I can since the early 90s and do nothing but slice them and cook in butter with some s&p and have loved every treasured morsel of morel 
Again, apologies.
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No apology necessary for me.
My guess is that they just weren’t very good Morels to start with. Rinsing and soy isn’t doing very much. Good morels have a strong flavor that isn’t easy to turn into “nothing”. It isn’t like fish or some other subtle flavor that ends up being easily masked by doing too much. I agree with you that less is more with morels - only because why mask such a great flavor. . . .
And foraged mushrooms do need to be cleaned. Morels are particularly hard to clean because of all those nooks - so I also do a quick dunk in water - and I’ve found worms on the inside of morels, which is my primary reason for slicing them in half.
Nothing better than morels though! Honestly didn’t even know they grew in CA. As a mid-westerner they are always from MI, northern OH, WI. . . .
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