One of my favorite activities during this season is to go mushroom hunting. - The fierce beasts of deep forests, beware -here I come!!!
Today the temperature was hovering around pleasant 18 deg Celsius (I coulda easily handled couple of deg's more, though) and me, my mom and my godmother went to the woods that surrounds my godmother's new house. The day was pretty perfect for a mushroom hunt. It had been raining some in past two days, so the expectations of finding some 'shrooms were high.
 |
| Cool autumn sun in Mervi forest. |
Mushrooms seem to be just the thing for me: one can have a relaxed stroll in the forest and (hopefully) find occasional mushroom here and there sticking out of the ground. Quantity doesn't need to be that humongous and one will already have something to cook. My patience runs thin very fast what comes to picking berries or such. - Waaaayys too much work for any kind of decent amount.
 |
| 'shrooms! |
Mushrooms can also be frustrating at times, I admit that, especially if you don't find any =) At those times I ofter get the definite feeling of them 'shrooms laughing at me behind my back.
"Njännäjjäänjäänjäää, she didn't see us, she didn't see us here under the spruce!"
But usually, if you manage to find one you will find more, since the mushrooms tend to grow in sort of circular clusters.
I don't know soooo much about mushrooms, so I usually tend to stick to those few I know well, -so to say beyond the possibility of making a mistake with them. Luckily, in the Finnish forests there is only couple of really deadly mushrooms, it's more the question of totally spoiling your dish with something that tastes like puke or dung. The deadly ones are also quite distinctive in design, so they are pretty easy to to tell apart from the edible ones.
Chanterelle
Chanterelle is probably THE all time favorite mushroom in Finland. There are many reasons for this. It's relatively common, very easy to recognize because of it's bright color and particular shape. It's not as easy to find though as one would expect, because the autumn leaves on the forest floor try to hide it pretty effectively. These guys just below here were remarkably easy to spot, so this it the dream situation =)
 |
| Chanterelle |
Chanterelle is very much appreciated also because of the ease of the use of it. It just needs to be brushed clean (there is very rarely any bugs or maggots in it) and then it can be thrown to frying pan with little bit of butter, onion, salt and white pepper. And Voilá, there you have it! Delicious, simple and absolutely delicious!
 |
| These are about 5cm in diameter |
It was clear that someone had hit the source already before me, but luckily chanterelle grows quite fast and has many "rounds" during it's season, roughly from July to end of October. The ones I found today were relatively small, but never mind, they'll be just as tasty.
For more facts on any Finnish mushroom, check out this page: Fungi in Finland and Sweden and what they say about chanterelle.
 |
| The safe catch: Shape and color almost impossible to get wrong. |
Sheep polyphore
Another mushroom that I quite fancy is a white one called sheep polyphore, but one has to be really lucky and find them real young. This mushroom is almost always totally infested with maggots and cannot therefore be used. But today I managed to find about dozen of really cute baby-sized polyphores, that were totally maggot-free. This one is also very simple to prepare, just clean and fry.
 |
| Sheep polyphore |
Penny buns
Boletus edulis aka penny bun or porcino is the biggest export mushroom of Finland and this seems to be a year when the forest really yields plentifully. I've never seen so many so clean and big penny buns on one go before. Also my godmother was astonished, and she's been walking these forests for past forty years.
These mushrooms are also delicious without much of hassle. They just need to be cleaned and sliced and they're ready to go to the frying pan with some olive oil, pepper, parsley and salt to turn into sort of mushroom steaks.
Of course there is a huge variety of different kind of brilliant recipes for mushrooms, but somehow I just like them best in pretty simple ways. Then you can still really taste the mushroom itself without conflicting it with other flavors. Matter of taste. And I guess there is so many chanterelle now that they'll turn easily into a pie -I'll keep you guys posted on how that turns out, stay tuned =) =)
 |
| Penny bun |
All in all, I just like to walk in the woods occasionally. If it's nice cool weather and the forest floor is dryish, it's just perfect a place to go minding one's own business. Never mind the mushrooms or other forest bounty, the biggest yield can actually come out of one's head.
No wonder they call the forest "the poor man's church".
Nonetheless, we did find something during our short outing. In just one hour (my mom was the first to give up) we came up with this:
 |
| Our Penny bun catch: Biggest ones nearly 20cm in diameter |
 |
| Quite a nice lot of chanterelle and sheep polyphore |
Nice, huh?
Update:
This is one of the things we created:
 |
| A creamy chanterelle pie with some leek. Yummy... |
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment