Fried Morels Tempura Style

Each of the last few years, I’ve managed to try something new with the lovely, nutty, delicious morel mushrooms I manage to get my hands on. Usually, I try to do something that features them rather than just includes them. One year it was a rustic pie with sour cream and thyme and what has become my favorite easy pastry crust. Last year it was pasta with browned butter. Both of those dishes have relatively simple flavors that allow the unique taste of the mushrooms to be the big deal.

This year, I didn’t mess around. Well, I made a mess, but I didn’t add anything to my morels but a very simple tempura-style batter and a hot bath of frying oil. This resulted in what I now think is the ultimate fried mushroom. The breading turned out extra crisp and the flavor was all morel mushroom. Earthy, nutty, unique and elusive morel mushroom.

I based this recipe on the one I use with squash flowers, but I simplified it by leaving out the egg. I didn’t want any heaviness or extra flavor to hide the delicate mushrooms. Using club soda in the batter makes it light and puffy and crisp. I think you could use beer in place of the club soda, but I would use a crisp, lightly-flavored one so the taste of the beer doesn’t overwhelm the subtle flavor of the morel. Speaking of beer, my husband said these go fabulously alongside a nice cold one.

 

I think it’s really important to feature the morel as much as possible no matter how you use it. I didn’t even make a dipping sauce for these. If you love morels, they don’t need so much gussying up. Like Christmas and Mardi Gras, they only come once a year. One must capitalize on this seasonal bounty with appropriate gusto! Of course, as caloric as these fried mushrooms are, it’s probably a good thing that the forests and markets aren’t stuffed with morels year round. Something this fabulously delicious would get me into sooooo much trouble.

  

Batter Fried Morel Mushrooms

If you have a lot of mushrooms, I think you could double the batter recipe.

You could use beer in place of the club soda, but be careful to choose one that does not overwhelm the delicate flavor of the morels.

about 12-15 small morel mushrooms or mushroom halves

canola or vegetable oil for frying
½ cup all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon coarse salt, plus more for sprinkling if desired
scant ½ cup club soda, plus more if needed
 

1. Clean the mushrooms very well, including the insides. Cut larger mushrooms into halves or quarters. Allow to dry thoroughly.

2. Pour the oil into a large cast iron or other skillet to a depth of about 2 inches. Heat over about medium heat until hot (about 350-375 F). (A dab of batter placed in the oil should sizzle vigorously.)

3. In a medium-size bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in the club soda and whisk until smooth. Add more club soda if needed to make a smooth batter that is easy to dip the mushrooms in.

4. Dip or dredge the mushrooms or mushroom halves in the batter to coat and carefully place them in the hot oil. Do not crowd the pan but fry in batches if necessary. Fry until golden brown on one side, just a few minutes. Be extra cautious. I found these to spatter quite a bit. Turn the mushrooms (I use a pair of tongs) over and fry on the other side until browned.

5. Remove from the oil and drain well on paper towels. Sprinkle with additional salt if desired.

 

Makes about 12-15 appetizer bites or 3-4 servings.          

Other recipes like this one: Fried Squash Flowers with Fresh Sage, Morel Mushroom Galette with Cream CheesePastry, Pasta with Morels and Brown Butter

One year ago: Rye Pie Crust Dough

Morel Compass

Ah, spring. Lilacs and apple blossoms perfuming the air. Green things growing over all of the brown and gray background that had been exposed for the last several months. And, if you know where to find them in this part of the world, morel mushrooms.

It seems, unfortunately, that I lost all my woods-woman skills (I did have some) when I went off to college. Luckily for me, more talented folks forage for morels and bring them into town where I can find them without a GPS device. It seems that one would need inside information to even know in which direction to proceed, and, since I’m a transplant to this area, I ain’t got it. Even the local co-op, which always indicates the place of origin of their produce items, simply printed “from around here” on the sign for the morel mushrooms.

I might not be able to find my way through the woods to a stash of wild mushrooms, but I know my way around the kitchen and my recipe stash pretty well. The problem was that I had actually collected very few (like, two) recipes for dishes containing morels over the years, apparently not being optimistic enough to think I’d ever get my hands on enough of them to cook with. (Also, they are quite expensive, and I’ve only recently felt I could justify their cost.) Other than making this tart again this year, which might still happen, I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the morels I brought home.

I could always toss them with pasta, which is often a good way to make a main dish out of a featured, flavorful ingredient. But with what flavors? Alfredo sauce? Hmmm. Close, and maybe do-able, but not quite right. I rolled the nutty, woodsy, buttery taste of the morel around my mind’s palate a little more and it finally came to me: brown butter. It’s nutty and buttery and wouldn’t take over the flavor of the dish. Great. Now, how do I make brown butter?

Well, rather than taking the time to find some good instructions for making proper brown butter, I simply went from my memories of all those instructions that I’d read before. Just because I hadn’t actually applied that knowledge yet didn’t necessarily mean it had gone stale. I hoped. Anyway, there may be a better way to make brown butter than what I did, but what I did was simple and delicious. I simply melted unsalted butter and let it cook until it turned brown, but stopped cooking before it turned black. I poured off the melted butter, leaving behind the sort of blackened solids, and skimmed off the foam that was floating at the top. Viola! Brown butter. I think.

This stuff was all I hoped it would be with the morels and pasta. I sautéed the mushrooms and some garlic in some of the brown butter, added a splash of white wine and some fresh thyme and tossed it all with some more brown butter. This is quite a buttery dish, so if you’re counting calories, you might want to make some adjustments. For me, the rich and nutty flavor is worth the extra naughty fat calories every once in a while, say, just when fresh morels are in season “around here.”

Pasta with Morels and Brown Butter

4 tablespoons unsalted butter
6 ounces linguine
½ pound morel mushrooms, cleaned very well, trimmed and coarsely chopped
2 medium-size cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon (loosely packed) fresh thyme leaves
¼ cup dry white wine (I used an inexpensive chardonnay)
¼ teaspoon coarse salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan with a light-colored bottom (so you can tell when it has turned brown). Continue to cook a few minutes more until the butter turns golden brown. Remove the foam from the top of the butter. Pour the butter into another container, leaving as much of the blackened solids behind as possible. Set aside.

2. Cook the linguine in boiling salted water until tender or to taste. Drain and set aside.

3. Heat 2 tablespoons of the browned butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the garlic and cook, stirring constantly for about 30 seconds. Move on to the next step if the garlic begins to brown before that time.

4. Add the morel mushrooms and cook, stirring frequently for about 3 minutes or until the mushrooms appear limp and have given off some of their liquid.

5. Add the thyme and wine and cook about 30 seconds to 1 minute, or until the liquid has reduced to about half. Add the cooked linguine, salt, pepper and remaining browned butter. Toss to coat the pasta and heat through.

Makes 2 large main-dish or about 4 side-dish servings.

One year ago: Morel Mushroom Galette with Cream Cheese Pastry

Two years ago: Baguette

Seasonal 'Shrooms

You would think that the idea of spring would be thrilling enough in the upper Midwest. Warmer, longer days, lack of snow, green grass and lilacs are like paradise after the long, cold winter. But then comes the food-lover’s gift of spring, the morel mushroom, with its elusive nature and delicate floral and nutty flavor.

I don’t know much about the morel or foraging for it, so I let the experts do that for me (a good idea when it comes to wild mushrooms of any kind.) They’ve been available for the last few weeks and, while I’d only eaten them once or twice before this year, I was determined not to let this limited-time opportunity pass me by in 2010.

When I bought the most recent bunch, I couldn’t find much in the stores to accompany them that was fresh and local. Thinking they’re probably best appreciated on their own anyway, I raided my recipe stash (it’s actually catalogued, at least partially, in a database, so it was a less messy process than it sounds.) A single recipe presented itself and since I had all the necessary ingredients on hand, I pounced upon it.

The recipe was for some fancy little appetizer tarts with a morel and sour cream filling. I adapted it for the amount of mushrooms I had and the amount of effort I was willing to make. In short, I made and easy free-form tart or galette with a simple filling and a delicious crust that is so easy to make, it might just become my go-to pastry. If you have a heavy-duty mixer, this crust takes just minutes to put together. It bakes up tender and flaky and flavorful. All I did to change it was bump up its WFQ* by swapping in some whole wheat pastry flour. Where have you been all my life, little crust? Buried in an overwhelming file of untested recipes, you say? My apologies.

I won’t apologize for getting excited about this dish, though. I might not be able to make it again until those ‘shrooms are back in season, but that multi-purpose pastry will be back in the kitchen sooner than that. Hmm….and the CSA deliveries begin next Tuesday…so many things to be excited about!

Easy Cream Cheese Pastry
Adapted from a recipe in Midwest Living Magazine

If you don’t have whole wheat pastry flour, you can use regular all-purpose flour in its place.

4 ounces cream cheese (I used the 1/3-less fat variety), at room temperature
4 tablespoons butter, at room temperature
¼ cup whole wheat pastry flour
½ cup all purpose flour

1. Combine the cream cheese and butter in the bowl of a heavy duty mixer. Beat at medium speed until smooth and fluffy. (You may also be able to mix this crust together by hand. I haven’t tried it.)


2. Add the whole wheat pastry flour and all-purpose flour. Beat on low speed until all the flour is incorporated and the mixture comes together into a moist ball.

3. Form the dough into a disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 1 hour before using.

Makes enough dough for one 8-10 inch tart or galette

Morel Mushroom Galette with Cream Cheese Pastry
Based on a recipe in Midwest Living Magazine

2 tablespoons butter
½ cup chopped onion
4 ounces fresh morel mushrooms, very well cleaned and coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons dry white wine (or vegetable broth)
3 tablespoons sour cream
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves
1 recipe Easy Cream Cheese Pastry (see above), chilled
1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water (optional)
1-2 tablespoons grated parmesan cheese (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 F. In a medium sized skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the onion and cook until tender and just beginning to brown, about 5-8 minutes.

2. Add the mushrooms and wine and cook, stirring occasionally, until most of the liquid has evaporated, about 5-8 minutes. Remove from the heat and set aside.

3. In a small bowl, combine the sour cream, flour, salt and thyme. Stir well.

4. Stir the sour cream mixture into the mushroom mixture and set aside.



5. On a floured surface, roll the Easy Cream Cheese Pastry into a 12-inch circle (or close to it, no need to be exact.) Carefully transfer the dough to a large baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat (or you can brush it with oil.)

6. Spoon the mushroom mixture into the center of the pastry. Fold the edges of the pastry up over the filling. Brush with the egg mixture if desired.

7. Bake at 350 for 25-35 minutes or until the crust is golden brown. Remove from the oven and sprinkle with parmesan if desired.

Makes 4 servings.

WFQ: Whole Food Quotient

One year ago: Baguette