He is my accidental mushroom forager. It was an incredibly beautiful afternoon in early September when we happened upon these porcini mushrooms. That same morning, Scott had been educated on wild mushrooms of the season. So we were very excited when we chanced upon them unexpectedly. A kind gentleman recognized what we were gathering and offered us a bag for our treasures. Our benefactor just happened to be a chef from the eastern states and very much appreciated what we had found. The only difficult part of that afternoon was rushing home to make it to Stake Conference. It was such a great treasure hunt!
That evening we sampled our cache by sauteing a few of the perfect porcini in butter. Wow! Our new chef acquaintance was right; they are delicious!
To assure you that this is a recipe blog, I'll tell you that we dried the mushrooms in our dehydrator. The old reliable Ball Blue Book recommends that the mushrooms be dipped in an acid solution to prevent browning. However, these porcini didn't need it at all. All I did was clean and sort them. Then the best were cut in 1/4 inch slices. The largest porcini took about 9 hours to completely dry at a low heat.
We have used these beautiful porcini in soups, omelets, and as a side dish cooked in butter. I am already looking forward to trying them in Thanksgiving stuffing. They are so fast and easy to hydrate and even the water used for plumping them back up has a wonderful flavor.
Now, the official disclaimer here will be to confirm that you know your wild mushrooms! If in doubt, throw it out! It is also wise to always cook wild mushrooms to nullify any toxicity.
By the way, we did not use the largest mushroom in Scott's hands. It was much too mature. We definitely prefer the smaller size.
