• Archive for November 13th, 2008

    Sautéed Chanterelles with
    Shallots, Thyme, and Hazelnuts

    November 13, 2008 // No Comments »

    Sautéed Chanterelles with Shallots, Thyme, and Hazelnuts

    This is absolutely wonderful. Savory, sensual, and warming for the winter. It accompanies pork delightfully, and benefits from being spooned over a wild rice mix, but without being integrated into it (think about a marriage with separate bank accounts and a honking pre-nup versus a “we share everything” mentality). If you squint your brain it makes sense!

    FOR 4:

    Ingredients:

    • 3 Handfuls Chanterelles, wiped gently and torn into pieces, not chopped.
    • 1.5 Shallots
    • 1 T Thyme leaves
    • Handful of Hazelnuts, slivered
    • 2 T Butter (I used Earth Balance and it was perfection, though)
    • Fleur de Sel and Pepper

    Procedure:

    1. Dice the shallot finely, but don’t trim it into oblivion. It should be substantial enough so that it is daintily toothsome. Like Katherine Hepburn.
    2. Melt butter in a pan on high heat.
    3. Add shallots and cook until they soften.
    4. Add chanterelles and sprinkle with thyme leaves, picked from stem and bruised between your fingers. No chopping nonsense.
    5. Sprinkle with a decent amount of salt and pepper, and toss.
    6. Move la masse around periodically as it cooks.
    7. You’ll notice that for the duration of the cooking time, the mushrooms are not really browning, but simmer/sautéing in the pan in a little pool of butter and their own expelled juice (Mushrooms are sponge-like, water logged vegetables. This is why they are cooked on high heat: to sear them, producing a skin that should trap the juice within the fungi. Often, it is recommended that salt be withheld from the operation until after they have been removed from the heat, to further discourage the breakdown of membranes and subsequent release of liquid, but I’ve never found that process to effect anything more than a bland tasting product that screams for some NaCl).
    8.   All of that is to say that there is a decisive moment at the end when the mushrooms will have absorbed enough butter, and their water will have evaporated, so that they stop simmering and suddenly brown. You must be fully cognizant at this time, or things will burn and all is lost. So be vigilant about staying in the kitchen. You’ll hear the moment arrive. Gently push the chanterelles around so that they brown uniformly as opposed to charring on one side and remaining pasty pale and in need of a tan on the other.
    9.   Voila! Sprinkle with the hazelnuts, mix a bit, and you are done!
    10. An additional miniature sprinkling of Fleur de Sel, if you haven’t gone to town with the salt before, is delicious. I never tire of the way a grain of Fleur de Sel languishes on the tongue. It is amazing, and I am a freakshow… je sais!

    Posted in The Recipes