Anyone Ever Had Dry Land Fish Mushrooms?

[skye]

I eat mushrooms every week

But supermarket mushrooms..... barbecued, they are delicious!

 

[Lewdog]

For survival tactics we teach people to stay away from fungi.

There is no food value.

There is only the risk of death.

That's not true... they have antioxidants, Vitamin D, Iron, Niacin and B-6.

 

[yiostheoy]

For survival tactics we teach people to stay away from fungi.

There is no food value.

There is only the risk of death.

That's not true... they have antioxidants, Vitamin D, Iron, Niacin and B-6.

In a survival situation that's the last thing you would care about.

You need nourishment in a survival situation.

That means starchy roots, edible leaves, acorns, pine nuts, and anything animal that you can kill and eat.

And if you get sick in a survival situation which 99% of mushrooms can do to you then you will dehydrate and die.

 

[Lewdog]

For survival tactics we teach people to stay away from fungi.

There is no food value.

There is only the risk of death.

That's not true... they have antioxidants, Vitamin D, Iron, Niacin and B-6.

In a survival situation that's the last thing you would care about.

You need nourishment in a survival situation.

That means starchy roots, edible leaves, acorns, pine nuts, and anything animal that you can kill and eat.

Niacin and B-6 help you to convert your carbohydrates to energy... and antioxidants help keep your immune system up. It would be silly to pass up food like that if you are trying to stay alive.

 

[Missourian]

Spring weather means it's mushroom-hunting season.

 

[yiostheoy]

There are mushrooms growing everywhere around here.

What they really are is a pervasive fungus in the soil, and they send up fruiting bodies which we call mushrooms.

 

[yiostheoy]

For survival tactics we teach people to stay away from fungi.

There is no food value.

There is only the risk of death.

That's not true... they have antioxidants, Vitamin D, Iron, Niacin and B-6.

In a survival situation that's the last thing you would care about.

You need nourishment in a survival situation.

That means starchy roots, edible leaves, acorns, pine nuts, and anything animal that you can kill and eat.

Niacin and B-6 help you to convert your carbohydrates to energy... and antioxidants help keep your immune system up. It would be silly to pass up food like that if you are trying to stay alive.

Blood soup has more nutrients than anything else.

You take one rat or squirrel, skin it, gut it, save the heart, kidneys, and liver, put everything in a small pot, add water, cover it, start a fire, and then boil it for a long time.

Pick out the bones and throw them away.

Eat all the meat and broth.

 

[usmbguest5318]

People all over my area are selling them for pretty expensive amounts, like $20 per pound... I'm just curious if anyone has ever had them before and if they are really THAT good that they are worth paying that much for them.

They are what I call morels. AFAIK, they are in season and only available fresh around this time of year. They are the priciest mushroom [1], however they are amazingly tastely. No other 'shroom tastes like them, but they are a reasonable and less dear flavoring alternative to black truffles.

I have cooked with them and black truffles in a variety of ways. Among the relatively simple ways to use them is to saute them in butter (not a butter alternative) with diced onion and bacon and than add in blanched French beans. Serve the beans and when doing so/at the table, drizzle very old balsamic vinegar (or balsamic "syrup" if you don't care to pay the price for 50+ year aged balsamic vinegar) over them.

Another dish I make using them is mac 'n' cheese. Again, saute about two handfuls (more or less as suits your taste for them in the first place) of morels in butter (not a butter alternative). Slice about half a dozen of them length wise into quarter slivers. Dice the remainder. Then add them to the macaroni and cheese that you will in turn bake in the oven. Then bake the mac 'n' cheese as you normally would. About halfway through the baking time, scatter the slivers over the top and then resume baking until the dish is done. [2]

The mac 'n' cheese dish can be supplemented with a variety of meats -- literally whatever one happens to have, it could even be canned tuna fish, which would essentially make the dish a tuna casserole -- as one sees fit. I like to add diced ham or diced and cooked bacon to it. At the end of Easter weeks when I served leg of lamb rather than rack of lamb, I'll dice and add in some of the remaining lamb. (I haven't cooked leg of lamb in ages, but now that I've shared this recipe with you, I think I'm going to need to buy some cubes of lamb (the kind sold for stews) to make the lamb mac 'n' cheese. LOL)

As you may have gleaned from the suggestions above, morels are excellent for mushroom risotto. Porcini's the the "rest of the year" mushroom I use for that, but at this time of years, I use morels. Also on the obvious side of things, one can use morels to make mushroom soup; just use morels instead of whatever other mushroom you might normally use.

Morels also work very nicely in cold dishes. I like them sauteed, slivered and added to wilted spinach salad with bacon or ham, hard boiled egg slices and hot, freshly made balsamic vinaigrette. One of the things I like to serve at Easter season parties is morel deviled eggs. That dish takes some time because after sauteing the morels in butter, you have to finely dice and cool them at least to room temperature, but preferably to about 50 degrees or so [3] before adding them to egg yolk filling for the deviled eggs.

So there you go. Now that you morel cooking ideas, go get y'self a bag or two of them and have at it. I'd say the only thing you may not want to do with morels is put them in a dish where their flavor isn't able to stand out. Thus, for example, don't put them in a stew, unless, of course, it's a morel stew or morel soup. Certainly one can put them in a standard stew, but morels are a bit pricey to toss into a stew where their flavor won't stand out.

Note:

1. If you're getting them for $20/pound, buy up. I don't know where you are, but at the "gucci grocer" I go to, they are about triple that.
2. The same dish can be made using black truffles. Thinly slice the raw truffle and place them on the bottom of a buttered baking dish. Place the cooked noodles, along with the cheeses you're using, in the dish atop the slices and bake as usual.
3. The precise temperature isn't important, but ideally they are cooler than room temp and not as cold as refrigerator temp. Fifty degrees is about that temperature. This is after all savory cooking, rather than sweet cooking, so exact measures and temperatures, for the most part, aren't necessary. It just needs to be enough to "get the job done" and not overdo it.

 

[Muhammed]

Those are morels and they're delicious. I've found a lot of them this spring. They're not hard to find if you know where to look.