Chanterelles

Chanterelles are exquisite edible mushrooms which have a very special flavour of their own, are rightly considered a delicacy and also enjoy great popularity in top gastronomy.

When using such mushrooms, they should take centre stage in the dish – or at least stand out very clearly as an element in their own right. It makes no sense to cook with such a product and then mask its flavour with other ingredients or spices.

In addition to the fact that these mushrooms, which grow in forests, are not found everywhere, this also explains why there are quite few substantially different recipes for preparing them.

Since long ago, chanterelles have only been sensibly combined with products that do not overwhelm their own flavour and ideally even enhance it.

Of course, it’s not possible to cover all of this in one blog post, so today we’ll explain a few important things about handling these mushrooms in our know-how category.

The cleaning process

Chanterelles form symbiotic relationships with trees and are therefore generally not cultivated. Tree needles, other plant components and all sorts of other natural occurrences often adhere to them. They can be nibbled on and even colonised by animals (but only very small ones). None of this is a reason to be afraid. Only a certain amount of cleansing is conducive to enjoyment.

If you wash mushrooms with water, they quickly soak it up and can lose flavour. Whenever possible, you should therefore not do this. However, they may be so dirty (or have to be processed in such quantities in gastronomy) that the effort would be too great. Then fill a bowl with cold water, add around 1 tablespoon of flour and a little lemon juice, mix thoroughly and wash the chanterelles very quickly with your hands in this mixture. The flour helps to remove the dirt, making the process much quicker. Then immediately pour the mushrooms through a sieve and place them on a cloth or, even better, kitchen paper to dry.

Otherwise, use a mushroom brush. For the very delicate chanterelles, a not too soft brush, as used for painting, is even better. Other soiling can be rubbed off with a kitchen towel and unattractive spots removed with a small knife.

In top gastronomy, you would now hold the mushroom delicately with the cap facing downwards and finely scrape off the outermost layer of the stem with a knife. This is a lot of work, so we have only done this here as an example. What you should always do, however, is cut off the very dry, leathery end of the stem.

Excursus: Beurre noisette

Today it’s about know-how, so a few words about beurre noisette, also known as hazelnut butter or brown butter. This is a powerful ingredient that you should know about and that we will certainly describe in more detail. But that would go beyond the scope here.

We heat a few tablespoons of butter in a small pot over a medium-high heat until it becomes liquid and eventually foams.

The solid components now separate from the milk fat and the water contained evaporates, which you can clearly hear. Brown spots form at the bottom, the liquid takes on a golden colour and begins to smell unbelievably fragrant. The sound of the evaporating water suddenly stops and at this point we immediately remove the pot from the heat and pour off the liquid, leaving the brown bits at the bottom behind as much as possible.

For today’s dish, we only use very finely chopped shallots, chopped parsley and eggs beaten with a fork, with the mushrooms remaining the main ingredient in terms of quantity as well (200 – 250 g mushrooms to just 2 eggs).

Preparation

Like all mushrooms, if you fry chanterelles over a low heat, they release liquid and then cook in it. You don’t want this because they would take on an unpleasant consistency, either slimy or even leathery in the end. That’s why they are first fried on a high heat, which is only reduced later. We start on the induction cooker at level 8 out of 10, put our mushrooms and shallots in a non-stick pan and add just a little butter.

While the pan is tossed occasionally, the mushrooms release their liquid and the onions sauté. This only takes about 2 minutes. The chanterelles take on a darker colour and we season delicately for the first time with a little salt and ground black pepper.

We now remove about a third of the mushrooms from the pan with a spoon and set aside. The heat is reduced to low (3 out of 10), a little more butter is added and the beaten eggs are poured into the pan so that they spread out in a thin layer. We sprinkle the entire surface with parsley and a little more salt and pepper to season the egg as well.

As with a French omelette, the eggs should only be cooked very gently. Once they have set at the bottom of the pan but are still quite runny on the surface, we start shaping them with a spatula or rubber scraper from the direction of the pan handle into a roll that encloses the mushrooms, lifting the handle so that gravity comes to our aid. Finally, we grip the handle from below instead of from above as usual and flip the roll onto a plate. Then the mushrooms we set aside are placed on top of the egg, which is drizzled generously with brown butter.

We serve with buttered, dark sourdough bread, covered with chive rolls.

To conclude

This is not a recipe, so we are not giving any quantities.

But we hope we’ve made you intrigued by chanterelles, which would make us very happy. And recipes will follow – like every week.

And yes, that was a lot of butter. Blame the French, it’s all their fault.