Laetiporus and elk

I went out for maitakes again last week, but unfortunately had some trouble locating oak trees, where they tend to grow, and came back empty-handed with respect to Grifola frondosa.  Luckily the excursion was not a total failure, as I found the prettiest, juiciest chicken mushroom that I've ever seen.  I think the window to get them in this condition must be no more than 24 hours.  The color was bright, the flesh was tender.  Beautiful.  It's hard to tell without something for scale but that is a big tree, and that is a big chicken mushroom.  It was about eight pounds total, all prime.

I still had hen of the woods that needed to get used, and I didn't think I would have the time to prep it all, so I only kept about a pound.  I traded the rest to the Bristol.  I'm looking forward to checking the place out.

Here's some of the chicken on the cutting board.  It got the same treatment as the elk - marinated in soy sauce, oil and ginger, and grilled.

 Here's the elk, after a brief marinade.

Here's the maitake from last week.  Sauteed with shallots and later, some brandy.

Some veggies boiling - artichokes and parsnips.  Some artichokes were blanched then grilled, some were just boiled.  The parsnips went into a parsnip mash which I won't claim was my finest moment.

Here's the grilled elk.  It was really fantastic.  The meat has no marbling; it's extremely lean.  Yet it was tender and full of flavor, with just a hint of gaminess.  It's closer to beef than to venison, and all delicious.  You can also see some grilled chicken mushroom to the left.  That also came out great.  I was afraid it would dry out and turn to cardboard, but the texture held up and it stayed juicy.

You can see more grilled Laetiporus here, nestled among grilled artichokes.  I love artichokes, even though these were past their prime and really needed to get used.

And the whole spread, with mushrooms and melted butter for good measure.

Oh yeah, there was roasted butternut squash and mashed parsnips too.

Summer mushrooms

Fall mushrooms are great, but here in Illinois, the summer may be the better season for fungus.  Here is a delayed post celebrating chanterelles, lobster mushrooms, milky caps, parasols and more.

First, the American Parasol Mushroom, or Leucoagaricus americanus.  There was a huge patch of these growing in mulch under hedges on the perimeter of a parking lot that covers about half a square block.  They fruited pretty much constantly for almost a month.  In all, I bet there were nearly 100 pounds of mushroom in that period, of which I picked something like 30 pounds.  The flavor is kind of interesting with a sort of sharp, almost off taste.  Can't say I love them, but a very pretty mushroom.  I had a lot more pictures but these are lost with my old computer.

 This specimen is particularly pretty, I think.  I dried it, so it's still around.  The fat stem is hollow and those openings go all the way through, so the head rests on bowed columns.  No cooking pics.  I actually sold most of what I picked, but I did make a cream sauce and fried some alone.

 The most prolific hunt of the year came in early August.  Together with the chef of Bonsoiree and Chicago's only (to my knowledge) professional forager I picked almost 30 pounds.  About half of the haul was chanterelles with the balance split evenly between lobster mushrooms and lactarius hygrophroides. There were also tons of boletes out, including huge specimens, but unfortunately they were pretty much all a bitter bolete species.  There were literally more chanterelles than we could pick, not in a small number of discrete patches, but scattered widely throughout the woods.  There were also tons of russulas - some of which acted as the hosts for the lobsters and quite a few amanitas.  There were literally mushrooms anywhere we looked.  It rivaled, but did not quite match, my first mushroom hunt in Santa Fe last summer.

Here's the group shot.

Here's a lobster and a milky cap on the cutting board.

Some chanterelles in the pan.

Here's a wild salmon dinner featuring wild mushrooms.  On top of the salmon is a failed beurre blanc cum fried shallots (will use my copper pot next time).  To the left is a medley of wild mushrooms with chanterelles, milky caps and lobsters.  Salad with some goat cheese from Capriole.  And roasted potatoes of varying kinds from the farmers market with garlic and shallots.

The next day - with tons of mushrooms still in the fridge, I made a mushroom sauce with cream, brandy and dried cherries.  Same varieties of mushrooms.

This was served over some broiled lamb and plated with a wild mushroom and potato casserole with some delicious cheese which I unfortunately can't remember any details about.

In an effort to use all the mushrooms I also made a couple quiches and some casseroles with leftover filling.  Here is one, topped with heirloom tomatoes.  I had better pictures and I think the other quiche had a better crust, but oh well.  It was delicious.

Urban Ornithology

OK, I need some help here.

While biking home from work yesterday, I noticed some green birds hopping around in a couple trees eating hard, orange-red berries.  I have never seen anything like them in the US - before I noticed that there were 5-6 of them, I thought the first might be a petstore fugitive.

This is a pretty poor quality cellphone picture, but hopefully you can get a sense of what they look like.  They have a strong, curved beak and were all green, with no distinctive markings to speak of.

As I said, there were a number of birds in these two trees, and they were going at the berries pretty enthusiastically.  Naturally, they were making some clacking noise, etc.  But while I was trying to get some pictures of them I kept hearing a louder, sort of gobbly racket coming from the ground on the other side of the fence.  (This was on the perimeter of a hospital parking lot).

I figured it was just a few of the green birds doing their thing on the ground, but when I went around to get a better position to photograph them, lo and behold, there was a turkey-like bird hopping around.  He wasn't too flighty, although he did retreat from my advance when I got closer than eight feet or so.

 

 

Unfortunately, the pictures aren't great, but you can see what he looks like.

Who has an idea of what these birds are? 

All that the rain promises and more...

Is the title of David Arora's "hip pocket guide to Western mushrooms," a title which proved portentous for my copy, destroyed by flood two months ago.  No matter, King Boletus lives on, and fall's bounty has arrived.

We have had a dry spell here in Chicago, but the wily Hen of the Woods is springing from its oaky home nonetheless.  Throw in an odd giant puffball and you have a pretty good hunt.

The puffball's skin is really convenient.

  

Here's  a small maitake aka Hen of the Woods in prime condition.  This one would probably have continued to grow for some time.  It was just under a pound as it was.  We found two more mushrooms that were larger but somewhat past their prime for a total of over 5 pounds of maitakes.

I sliced the puffball up, dredged in flour, egg and bread crumbs and fried in olive oil.  It has a good, mild flavor with a hint of an almost minty taste that I can't quite place.  The texture is really cool.

I sauteed some of the maitakes with shallots and red wine.  Ate it on some rye toast with melted cheddar cheese.  They need to be cooked for a while, but are wonderfully chewy and delicious.  I will try to do something more exciting with the other 4 odd pounds later this week.