Chanterelle Hunting

Over the weekend, Kevin and I were invited to go mushroom hunting for chanterelles in a fairly secretive location. Neither of us had ever gone mushroom hunting before, even though it's something I've been wanting to do for a while. 

We arrived prepared with pocket knives, buckets and bags, and bright orange clothing (since it just so happens to be deer season.) We hiked a little ways up a few logging roads before we were told by our friends to head into the woods to start hunting. Kevin and I started on one side of the road, and our friends on the other. At first, I didn't really know what I was looking for. I knew what a chanterelle looked like, but I kept questioning every mushroom I came across, then started getting really excited over how cool ALL the mushrooms were. Eventually, we found a few clusters of what were unmistakably chanterelles, and then started finding more and more. 

After spending the afternoon hiking off-trail and getting spiders in my hair, we came home with bags and buckets full of beautiful chanterelles. Currently, in Olympia, chanterelles are $10/lb at the co-op and $13/lb at the farmer's market, but we ended up collecting over six pounds for free. 

We got them home and laid them outside on cardboard for a few hours to let the spiders and bugs run for safety somewhere other than the corners of our kitchen. Then we bundled them up in a paper bag in and left them in the fridge until the next day when we would have time to clean and cook them. 

Processing them took a while. We spent a few hours brushing the dirt and leftover grime off each mushroom, inspecting it for mold, cutting off the woody stems, and listening to Les Claypool's "Of Fungi and Foe" for good measure.

This was Kevin's favorite chanterelle of the whole batch. 

Next step was to cook them. Raw chanterelles can apparently cause tummy trouble. They also don't rehydrate well, so dehydrating them wasn't an option. I googled several ways to properly process the mushrooms and we decided on sautéing them in Earth Balance. We cut eat mushroom up into smaller pieces and cooked them for 15 minutes in the frying pan until they were swimming in their own juices. 

After the pan was 50% water, 50% mushroom, we strained it and packed the cooked mushrooms into muffin tins, where we would freeze them.

Once frozen, we'd have perfect little serving sizes for soups and whatnot. I'm thinking chanterelle and wild rice burgers.

We used some to make a vegan version of this recipe. Kevin thought it would be better as a side dish, possibly with a steak or something (tempeh steak, amiright?!) Either way, it was great with a glass of merlot.

Hope everyone had a great weekend!