Mushroom kadai masala

Looks delicious, and not too difficult, provided you can get hold of all the spices. I assume the tomato, chilli, ginger and cashew paste is prepared in advance using a blender.

A great cooking video, just one thing though - mushrooms are not vegetables!

Fungi and bacteria speed up tree growth

Now we know why trees
grow so tall

Today's news article contains a report that a special mix of bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi speed up tree growth and therefore can be a significant tool in reforestation.

The figure of 40% is most impressive: in the study, fruiting trees reached maturity in 3-4 years instead of 6-7, and non-fruiting varieties displayed similarly vigorous growth.

Strictly speaking, it's not news that fungi and soil bacteria are beneficial for plant growth, but such significant increase in growth means that the researchers managed to stumble on a lucky combination of the two.

Great work. If only the article authors would spell "mycorrhizal" right!

Image credit:
Oak forest

What's in a mushroom hunt?

Nothing! After a few hundred of
fruitless checks, mushroom hunting
loses its appeal... Until the next trip!

I came across this amusing article today, which attempts to explain why Russians are so fond of mushroom hunting, or "quiet hunt".

I think it very rightly captures the essence of mushrooming joy: you never know what you are going to get, and every next tree could host a potential treasure... or not! I have to point out though, that after checking 500 trees or so with no results things can get rather tense. Therefore it is important to have a planning element to your spontaneous mushroom adventure: when the extreme frustration comes in, you need to head for a spot where you know there'll be mushrooms. This is the reason why I generally dislike hunting in strange forests since in them you don't have this option.

Loved the bit about Nabokov's mother, who'd bring home lots of mushrooms and then totally lose interest in them, letting her kitchen staff to do the processing. I do my own processing and I love cooking the mushrooms I gather (as is witnessed by this blog), but if I did have "kitchen staff", who knows... The temptation of leaving dirty work to someone else is strong in this one.

The only thing that the author got wrong in the article, is that her linguistic coinage (which I dare not reproduce here, but for the curious, the complete text is here) is not really family friendly. The article author's HRH aka "Handsome Russian Husband" must have failed to explain that nuance of meaning. But well, it's men for you. Can never trust them.

Squirrels and chanterelles

Local butcher: "Squirrel? Seriously?"

Now, this is not a proper recipe because I failed (through no lack of trying though!) to get the main ingredient.

You can view and admire at the weirdness and complexity of the original recipe here. It is taken from a "hairy biker recipe book", and it makes me wonder...

Anyway, I did try to get some squirrel. Actually went to a butcher whose sign said, more or less, "we'll get you anything as long as it has legs". So I ask, do you have squirrel?

Mushroom mix: almost ready
(note the bright orange of the milk
caps - they always keep their colour)

You should just have seen the look they gave me. In the end, we settled on a wood pigeon since hey, it lives in the same woods, eats the same food, and climbs the same trees. Therefore, it must taste exactly the same, right? Right??

The pigeon, as it turned out, was composed mainly of bones, but it did make an unexpectedly nice sauce. And, of course, the mushrooms! The original recipe suggested chanterelles, but I used a mix of bay boletes, slippery jacks, chanterelles and saffron milk caps, fried until they were crispy. I must say, it indeed makes an excellent topping for any meat dish. I'm definitely going to cook something similar again, but maybe use something with more meat on it next time. Perhaps, venison meatballs. That would at least meet with butcher's approval...

Beautiful ceps

This weekend's trip was the most enjoyable I've had so far this season. Just look at the very first find, which I nearly missed in thick grass -

The perfect cep!

It wasn't large, the whole mushroom fit comfortably within my palm, but - oh, the shape! The colour! Say no more!

After this encounter I turned to a less well trodden path, the one which I take only two or three times in a season. It's not my favourite because of the wildlife: navigating that way means that most of the time you have to walk through very tall grass, which serves as a hiding place deer who snooze in it during the day (thankfully, yesterday there was just one). They wouldn't budge until you almost step on them! Even though I'm ready for this, it still gives me the willies.

Anyway, the deer are only half of the problem. The other half are their parasites. I've never seen so many ticks in my life. It seems that every blade of grass hosts dozens of them. Anyone needs shock cure for arachnophobia? Because, I once took a visitor that way, not realising she had that problem. After the screaming subsided (and let's try not to think of the deer, it was a seriously bad day for them), her fear of bugs and arachnids was gone, forever. I guess, when you have thousands of beasties crawling over you, your worst nightmare therefore comes true, and then you may realise that it wasn't so bad after all. Or at least, that's my explanation of what happened.

Right, where was I? Oh, yes. Mushrooms, of course. That perilous path has one thing for it: it leads to the most amazing chanterelle spot in the forest. On the space of about 100 square feet you get an obscene amount of mushrooms. It also goes without saying that they are all mine, because, see above. No one else is crazy enough to even attempt to reach it.

One square foot out of the hundred

After the deer and tick trials, I felt like I deserved an easier path to finish off the hunt, and thus took to a line of old elms that cuts right across the forest. I was really looking for amethyst deceivers, but it was not to be. However, there was another marvellous cep find:

Cep, under elm? Hmmm...

And also several young and juicy bay boletes -

Not as perfectly beautiful, but just as tasty

And, at the exit, yet another prize -

Unorthodox shape, but nice and firm - good for the basket

At the final stretch, I got deceived into thinking that these were saffron milk caps -

Arrgh! Wrong mushroom :-(

Took them anyway to test the theory that Lactarius torminosus are good pickled. The disappointment didn't last long though, as the mixed wood yielded some true saffron milk caps, too, and then it was time to go home!

Yield of the day: left - bay boletes; top - the three ceps; top right - brown birch bolete; right - saffron milk caps;
 bottom - slippery jacks; centre - lots of chanterelles. A most productive trip!