I love being able to share my favorite places and foods with people who come for vacation to Tuscany and recently I got to share two of my favorite things: hunt for wild mushrooms and taste the new olive oil at the oil mill! Part 1 of My Favorite Things, a new ongoing blog topic, is Mushrooming.
I’ve talked about wild mushrooms for years now and lots of people have asked me to take them mushroom hunting when they’re in Tuscany, but I’m not always able to oblige. The problem is, you never know when there will be mushrooms in the woods. It’s totally dependent on enough rain in the previous weeks. The ground has to get a good soaking with additional rain every now and then to keep it wet. In addition it should ideally stay warm to incubate the spores and often when the rains come, the weather turns cold. We had a really hot and dry summer and I despaired once again of having a decent mushroom season. We haven’t really had a great year since 2005.
Luckily it poured for the whole first week of September and, even though it interrupted a short beach vacation with my niece, it meant the beginning of a potentially good fall for fungus. Between constant soakings over the past two months and temperatures keeping relatively warm, we’ve had a plethora of all kinds of fungus. The mushrooms practically jump into your basket as you walk through the woods! I was convinced that I would finally be able to share a mushroom hunt with our November culinary group!
So after lunch two weeks ago, we put on sturdy shoes and headed into the woods. Two of the group had actually been mushroom hunting in the US and had an idea of what we were looking for. For the first half hour they each brought me every imaginable kind of inedible and poisonous mushroom that grows around here, and some were beginning to get disheartened that we weren’t finding anything good. Finally I took them to my secret area that I know to be rich with chanterelles and were rewarded with a treasure trove of the gorgeous, wavy yellow mushrooms. We also came across some porcini, leccini, hedgehogs and a few blewits. I let them know that the only reason I was sharing the location of my secret mushroom spot was because none of them live anywhere near Tuscany! Mushrooms come back in the same spot year after year and if you find a good area for mushrooms, you keep it a secret, even from your own family.
On the way back to the house to clean and saute our golden treasure, someone said “Why didn’t we just come here first?! Why did we wander all around the forest looking?”, to which I answered “Because then you wouldn’t have appreciated how difficult it can be!”
Wild Mushroom Saute’
1 lb wild mushroom mix (you can get a few ounces of wild and mix with some portabello and dried porcini)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 large garlic clove, chopped
1 tbsp chopped parsley
sea salt
Wash the mushrooms to remove and dirt or forest debris. Soak any dried mushrooms in room temp water until soft. Chop the mushrooms into the desired size. Heat the olive oil, butter and garlic together, add the parsley and the mushrooms, salt to taste, and saute until they give up their water. Continue cooking the mushrooms until the water all cooks off and they start to sizzle in the pan. They’re delicious on toasted bread (crostini) or can be used for risotto or pasta. I love them as a side to grilled Italian sausage or folded into eggs!
Wild mushroom crostini
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I love being able to share my favorite places and foods with people who come for vacation to Tuscany and recently I got to share two of my favorite things: hunt for wild mushrooms and taste the new olive oil at the oil mill! Part 1 of My Favorite Things, a new ongoing blog topic, is Mushrooming.
I’ve talked about wild mushrooms for years now and lots of people have asked me to take them mushroom hunting when they’re in Tuscany, but I’m not always able to oblige. The problem is, you never know when there will be mushrooms in the woods. It’s totally dependent on enough rain in the previous weeks. The ground has to get a good soaking with additional rain every now and then to keep it wet. In addition it should ideally stay warm to incubate the spores and often when the rains come, the weather turns cold. We had a really hot and dry summer and I despaired once again of having a decent mushroom season. We haven’t really had a great year since 2005.
Luckily it poured for the whole first week of September and, even though it interrupted a short beach vacation with my niece, it meant the beginning of a potentially good fall for fungus. Between constant soakings over the past two months and temperatures keeping relatively warm, we’ve had a plethora of all kinds of fungus. The mushrooms practically jump into your basket as you walk through the woods! I was convinced that I would finally be able to share a mushroom hunt with our November culinary group!
So after lunch two weeks ago, we put on sturdy shoes and headed into the woods. Two of the group had actually been mushroom hunting in the US and had an idea of what we were looking for. For the first half hour they each brought me every imaginable kind of inedible and poisonous mushroom that grows around here, and some were beginning to get disheartened that we weren’t finding anything good. Finally I took them to my secret area that I know to be rich with chanterelles and were rewarded with a treasure trove of the gorgeous, wavy yellow mushrooms. We also came across some porcini, leccini, hedgehogs and a few blewits. I let them know that the only reason I was sharing the location of my secret mushroom spot was because none of them live anywhere near Tuscany! Mushrooms come back in the same spot year after year and if you find a good area for mushrooms, you keep it a secret, even from your own family.
On the way back to the house to clean and saute our golden treasure, someone said “Why didn’t we just come here first?! Why did we wander all around the forest looking?”, to which I answered “Because then you wouldn’t have appreciated how difficult it can be!”
Wild Mushroom Saute’
1 lb wild mushroom mix (you can get a few ounces of wild and mix with some portabello and dried porcini)
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp butter
1 large garlic clove, chopped
1 tbsp chopped parsley
sea salt
Wash the mushrooms to remove and dirt or forest debris. Soak any dried mushrooms in room temp water until soft. Chop the mushrooms into the desired size. Heat the olive oil, butter and garlic together, add the parsley and the mushrooms, salt to taste, and saute until they give up their water. Continue cooking the mushrooms until the water all cooks off and they start to sizzle in the pan. They’re delicious on toasted bread (crostini) or can be used for risotto or pasta. I love them as a side to grilled Italian sausage or folded into eggs!
Wild mushroom crostini
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