How to store wild mushrooms

It was a couple of weeks ago now, but I thought I would just make a note for the record, that I had a massive harvest of wild field mushrooms. this is the first time I've come across such a generous crop of field  mushrooms Agaricus Campestris ever.

They were in the permanent pasture fields above our smallholding. Once they start to come out, they really do get going so you have to pick and use them whilst they at their delicious best. and therein lies the difficulty. For whilst everyone loves a stuffed mushroom to two, one does begin to run a bit short of enthusiasm after a week or so. They don't keep more than a day at most so to enjoy the benefits of the crop a way of storing has to be found. Well, I after some experimentation, I found that a duxelles mix is the best way of storing this lovely autumnal bounty. You can then store it in the freezer ready for use as a lovely pasta sauce or maybe as part odd that special beef Wellington you're planning for a dinner party. Or you can use it for the basis of a mushroom flan or spread on puff pastry as a canapé. Should you come across a good deal for mushrooms at the supermarket this would be a good way of preserving them. Use the food processor for chopping if you're in a rush.

Mushroom Duxelles
large basket of freshly picked field mushrooms, or a punnet from the supermarket
large clove of garlic
 2 shallots
2 oz butter
splash of dry vermouth

Finely chop the shallots and gently fry in butter till soft.
Finely chop the mushrooms and add to the pan with the grated garlic, salt and pepper and vermouth
Allow to cook gently until most of the moisture has evaporated, leaving a dry ish paste-like mix.
Leave to cool check seasoning and store in small quantities (ice  cube trays make it easy to use as much as you need).

To use as pasta sauce melt a few cubes in a saucepan with some cream or crime fraiche and a handful of parsley and stir into freshly boiled pasta.

 

I have to re state, as always, that I only pick and eat fungi that I know and can positively identify. Please do your research, or better still  take an expert's advice before eating any wild fungi.

Fungus Foray

Our new house is on the eastern edge of Exmoor, in the Brendon Hills. It's spectacular walking country, when it's not raining, which today it wasn't so I took the opportunity to stride off up the hillside with the dog. Bit squelchy underfoot, but lovely non the less. Now I've always been a fan of the idea of foraging, I've watched Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall going off to forage for delicious ceps, chanterelles, morels, and other delicacies, coming back to River Cottage and cooking up a wonderful mushroom supper with a scraping of wild garlic and herbs, but when I've searched myself for such things I've seldom found such bounty. Once or twice I've been rewarded with a Shaggy Parasol or two and once a whole field full of Field Mushrooms, but not as often as tv experts would have you believe.

 

So imagine my excitement when I got to the top of the hill and in the woods I came across these

it's not obvious from the photo, which I took with my phone, but there was a veritable sea of fungi all over the forest floor. I picked a few samples and took some photos,

and when we got back I rushed to check on the internet to see whether my hoped for mushroom supper was about to become a reality. Sadly it seems not. There were two main sorts of the fungi, and neither of them seem to be the edible kind, so far as I can see anyway. I've struggled to find them online and as I'm by no means an expert, and would certainly never consider eating anything that I could not positively identify, I will have to leave them be, but it's really such a shame because there are absolutely masses of the  things up there.

We had a house in France a few years ago, and so popular is fungus foraging over there that you can take your collected specimen of fungi into any pharmacist and they would identify it for you, although there were many apocryphal stories of whole families of people being found frozen in rigor mortis at the dinner table forks in hand around a dish of Amanita Phalloides a la Creme....

Ink Caps

Where we've had trees cut down to improve light levels, we get an annual crop of these pretty little Ink Cap type fungi.

They appear almost like magic, overnight, usually after heavy rain has soaked the ground, and on the area where the roots of the felled tree are still in the ground but gradually rotting down. Fungi help this process, and do no harm. Indeed many millions of fungi are found in healthy garden soil and are essential for plant growth.. Although the Inkcaps in my garden aren't edible, some inkcaps, notably the Shaggy Ink Cap, or Lawyers Wig, which you can see everywhere in the autumn, are edible. I've tried Shaggy Ink Caps fried with a bit of bacon, and found them ok but nothing special, and not so good as many other wild fungi, such as Parasols, which are delicious.

Incidentally, Inkcaps are so called because all members of the family soon deliquesce, as it's called, into a black inky mess, soon after they're picked, and the resultant liquid was used as a writing ink.

It goes without saying of course, that you should never consume any fungi you pick unless you are absolutely certain about what it is. Amanita Phalloides or the Death Cap mushroom is said to be the cause of more than 90% of European fatal mushroom poisonings, and to the untrained eye can look remarkably like a tasty supper. So take an expert, do a course, and take great care.