Chanterelles

Over five years ago, I was a young and impressionable nineteen year old working in Alaska. Up there, I worked with a cook in the kitchen. The cook was a young twenty one year old punk fresh from a two year degree at Culinary Institute of America. In my eyes, he was SOOO mature and SOOO grown up. He said things were "wicked awesome" (a strictly east-coast expression), listened to Explosions in the Sky, and could play "Blackbird" on his red guitar. He was the first cook I ever worked with, and I have two life-altering things to thank him for: he told me that if I ran a mile every day, that was all I needed to do to stay in decent shape, and he also told me that kitchen gadgets were a poor substitute for a simple chef's knife. He also taught me how to hold one correctly.

I hardly keep in touch with him anymore, but last time we chatted, he is no longer working in the culinary field but is living a lovely little east-coast life with his wife with a career in the military.

Without him, I wouldn't have climbed my first mountain and I would still think a coffee snob was someone who bought beans at Starbuck's. I also would probably still think that fancy food entailed a slab of grilled steak served along with mashed potatoes.

So today I am not a strict foodie, but I like good food. I can't really afford to eat a work of art at every meal, but I like to appreciate it when I can in the way I can.

This is what made me buy a pound of chanterelle mushrooms last weekend for $8.

I didn't know what chanterelles were, they just sounded fancy and I decided to learn a little.

There were white chanterelles and yellow chanterelles at the roadside stand, and the good 'ol boy running the stand gave me some minimal insight into what the difference was. I decided to get a mix of both. Upon getting them home, I discovered that yellow chanterelles have a stronger, deeper flavor, and white chanterelles taste just a little more watery and less flavorful. I prefer the yellow chanterelles, but to the non mushroom snob (like me) either would do just fine.

I stored them, unwashed, in a paper bag in the fridge. They're supposed to be good for about one week, but I've used them quickly enough so there's no danger of that happening. They can freeze (that's what the mushroom man told me!), or you can let them air-dry if you want to store them. Or just eat them as fast as you can. That's what I would do.

To clean them, I ran them under a steady trickle of cold water and used my fingers to rub off the dirt. I've also heard a better way to do this is to rub them with a damp paper towel. Basically, the less water you use on them, the better.

Here is the recipe I made tonight with them. This is one of the BEST things I've eaten in probably 18 years. OK, I just randomly picked the number 18, but it is SO worth a try. Very basic recipe, but very easy and will put a smile on your face for a week!

Chicken Breasts with Chanterelles (or you could use morels or shaggy manes...)
Serves 4.
Took me about 50 min to make, start to finish.

2 C dry white wine (note here to my conservative non-alcohol readers: please consider buying some white wine for cooking. Seriously. I've done my share of "substitutes" for wine when cooking in the past, and let me tell you: there is no comparison to the real thing.)
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 bay leaf
1 parsley sprig
4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1.5 pounds chanterelles, chopped
4 T butter
1 medium onion, diced (or 3 shallots...I used an onion b/c I am not fancy enough to keep shallots around)
1/3 c pine nuts (I acutally used hazelnuts...again, b/c I don't usually keep pine nuts stocked...but I think pine nuts would be better than the hazlenuts. Or maybe cashews would be good)
chopped fresh parsley, plus salt and pepper to taste.

In a large saucepan, bring the wine to a simmer with the bay leaf, garlic, and parsley. Add the chicken and cook, covered, for about 15 min. Remove the chicken and chop it up. In a separate saute pan, saute the chanterelles in the butter until tender. Drain off the cooking liquid and add it to the wine mixture in the saucepan. Bring to a boil, cook and stir until slightly thickened. Then add back the mushrooms and chicken, and also the pine nuts and salt and pepper to taste.

You can garnish with the parsley I presume, but I was too hungry to deal with chopping up more parsley at this point, and just ate it parsley-less. Also, I suppose you should serve it with a carbohydrate of some sort, but again I didn't take the time. I think roasted potatoes with olive oil and garlic would be good! Since it's the proper thing to pair your dinner with a drink, I paired my dinner with tea. I'm trying to start a new trend here. I had lemon tea, if I do this again, I think peppermint tea would be perfect to counteract the rich butteryness of this little taste of heaven. Followed by a square of dark chocolate from Trader Joe's. I didn't have any of that at the moment, so I settled for a few squares of hershey's milk chocolate..... :D Yeah, super gourmet, I know....

So! Go forth and eat good food! It's fun!

Sitting with a contented and full little belly,

Karen