My roommate Liz and I took a break two weekends ago to go hunt for morels.   I’d never successfully found one, although I’d gone morel hunting with someone who found three little dried up ones. 

Liz and I lucked out.  We hit I-90 out of Seattle, spontaneously pulled off at an exit for a state park, and picked a camp site in the campground at random.  While no other camp site there had morels, this one yielded about a pound and a half or two pounds of fresh, large, perfect ones.

Morels are my favorite wild mushroom.  The flavor is somehow both complex and subtle, meaty and earthy.  It’s not exactly like truffles, but it’s not exactly unlike truffles either.  That’s Perhaps because the cap has so much surface area in all those wrinkles, the flavor keeps coming through.

We brought them home and had a spontaneous feast: barbecued fish and chicken, salad, sautéed morels, and rhubarb crisp.  Sautéed morels go wonderfully with springtime food: in salads, tossed with pasta, next to salmon, or just eaten, simply, on their own.

Sautéed morels with cream, spring onions, and thyme

A handful of small spring onions, including green parts

Butter

White wine or sake

Fresh thyme

Cream to taste

Salt to taste

A few good friends

Brush morels clean or wipe with damp rag.  Chop spring onions.  Sautée in butter and add morels and a lot more butter.  Cook, stirring occasionally and covering for a few moments if the morels are thick.  Add white wine and let it simmer.  Add salt to taste, cream, and thyme, and turn off heat.  Serve.

Photos from our morel hunting (click here if you’re viewing it in an RSS feed):