After all these years I finally found a stand, and no, I’m not telling. Suffer.
Here’s how I did them up: While putting spaghetti to a boil, in a frypan I heated up some extra virgin olive oil and sauteed one crushed clove of garlic (removed when the oil was flavored), then tossed in the cleaned and quarter-sliced 'shrooms, and turned off the heat when they were done. When the pasta was done, I reheated the frypan and using tongs put the spaghetti in with a little additional pasta water, let it cook up, added a touch of freshly-ground black pepper and a bit of fresh parmesan (less is more, here), et voilà: my induction into the world of morel cookery.
Interesting how they taste very much like walleye!
I had a friend in Ohio that did the morel thing - he wouldn’t reveal his “patch” for any amount of bribery, nor would he invite anyone over to share in the bounty!
Unfortunately this is a small stand and I only got a handful of small ones, and so the one dish; but we’ll see how the season pans out, and maybe there’ll be more next year. I would definitely share, otherwise: your friend knows nothing about inciting envy.
I found three a couple of weeks ago. We cooked up two and let the third go to spore. They’re in my yard and while I don’t have a gun, I do have a chainsaw, so don’t get any ideas.
This is the third time we’ve found some. My wife did a little too much research, and soaked them in brine overnight. I did them in butter the next morning. They were better the first two times when we didn’t soak them.
An old friend of mine is a local morel dealer in Virginia. He studies the patterns, weather, etc., and sends people out into the right areas at the right times. He sells to the best restaurants in the area. One year, the mushrooms were so good and plentiful that he was asked to invite a group of friends to a free dinner at the Inn at Little Washington. I think there were at least a dozen people; at current prices that dinner would be worth 2000 to 3000 dollars. Also, this friend would have a morel dinner at his house – morel pate, fettucini alfredo with morels, man it was hobbit heaven.
“Dry Land Fish” - I never understood the obsession with them. I went with my husband once and we got a bunch of the things. He loves them and so do most folks around here.
One of the morel species is commonly called a “fire morel” Unfortunately it’s habit of coming up in burned over areas has led to a number of arson cases in the west. However I discovered a number of years ago that public campgrounds that allow open fires at camp sites can be a good source for morels. Particularly if said sites are on slight slopes so that the fire ash can be washed down slope away from high traffic areas. I have a number of sites that I hit every year with great success provided we have had sufficient rain to stimulate growth. I usually harvest enough that I have to dry several pounds each year which then go into meals throughout the winter. This year, not so good.
I am one of those natives who never particularly liked them, too. It’s strange. My mom used to fry them with ramps. It seems you find molly moochers and ramps at about the same time of year.
I’ve never had morels, but I did have some ramps a couple of weeks ago. I was going to make Chicken with Leeks but the kids ate them all before I could. The entire house smelled of them for days after.
Here is something my mother used to do. I don’t know if it is a melungeon thing, a West Virginia thing, or just peculiar to her, but she would take ramps and chop them up in scrambled egg batter, and make an omelet kind of dish with yesterday’s leftover meatloaf ground up on the inside of the omelet. I stopped eating meat when I was 12, but I can distinctly remember this dish because I’ve never encountered it anywhere else. I know there was cheese somewhere though I can’t remember if she put it in with the eggs and ramps or in with the meatloaf. It tasted good, from what I remember…a very rich dish.
Having lived so close to WV for so long, they used to have recipes like this one in the local paper and whatnot during the early Spring, which was an exiting time because it was “Ramp Season”. They don’t even call them “ramps” here in upstate NY…they’re “wild leeks”. Your recipe does sound yummy…although these days I too could do without the meatloaf.
The apartment where I used to live was located next to a wet ravine. You could find all kinds of mushrooms there, including a few morels. I can’t say that I am a lover of morels, however. I would just as soon have a large portabello mushroom from the store. Yes, the refrigerated bulk mushroom box at my local supermarket is where I like to poke around for a tasty mushroom, and one good portabello is all that I need.
For those of you who don’t get morel mania, I think a lot of the appeal comes less from their flavor than from their cult status: they’re relatively hard to come by, their season is brief, they look darned cool, and if you find your own stand you get to be “in the club”. Plus they get you out of the house and away from the computer.
Other than that, like Doug, a portobello or such with similar earthy flavor will keep me most happy. The “walleye” flavor of morels is interesting, but not a draw for me. I had a variety of oyster mushrooms straight out of the Wisconsin woods once and didn’t really care for them; there was something sharp, for lack of a better word, about the taste.
