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| Frying off the robust Chanterelle |
The Photo which opens this blog, at the top of the page at the moment is a Chanterelle. Photographed in the Scottish Highlands this delicious mushroom can be found in abundance if one looks in all the right places! It's a fat, chunky, solid fungi that feels as good as it tastes. It has sometimes the smell of apricots about it and its robust nature and fine taste make it a superb meal on its own. My wife and I either have them in omelets with a hint of garlic and a sprinkling of chives or in a risotto where the mushrooms are fried off in garlic, butter and a squeeze of lemon juice and then folded in to the risotto after it has been cooked.
Being a wonderful, delicate shade of mellow yellow may seem to make them easier to find, but in the autumn woodland floors are littered, carpeted and sometimes swathed in acres of yellow leaves! The false chanterelle is similar in shape and size, though it is spindly, more fragile and more orange than yellow, so a careful check will ensure you have the correct fungi, but the false version is not poisonous - just pointless.
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| A Scottish find... |
If you find a bed of chanterelles, make a note; they will return year after year in the same area faithfully although not necessarily at the same time as their fruiting depends on the weather. Once you have them, keep them! Those below we found about a mile from our cottage in Kent.
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| Chanterelles and Amethyst Deceiver - a colourful dish. |
