In Love With Fungi

So many times I've heard stories about people who subsist on rice cakes once they've been diagnosed with food allergies. My immediate thought is to put those poor folks on a plane to someplace exotic! Let them experience a different cuisine with the freedom of someone on vacation. Let them discover you can eat so much better once you experiment a little.

As your typical former fast-food American, my idea of a mushroom used to be the pasty white piece of rubber that I picked off of my pizza. But in researching a cancer-prevention diet for my dog, time and time again I came up against the mushroom's unquestionable nutritive value.

A friend made a suggestion to me that I'll pass along to you. For a first foray into mushrooms, start with a chantrelle -- probably the most delicately-flavored of mushrooms, with a soft and yielding flesh. Individual chantrelles range from light to dark gold in color and are quite distinctive in shape: the hats are wrinkled and fairly oval, with scalloped edges, and are cupped upwards. They have pizzazz. When cooked, they taste buttery and a little like trout. A chantrelle is not at all like what I expected a mushroom to be.

Below is how I prepared my first chantrelles.

First I made a dressing, using a teaspoon of organic peanut butter, a teaspoon of sesame oil, and a dollop of organic olive oil. I whipped that together, adding a heaping tablespoon of chili pepper flakes, some splashes of rice vinegar, and then a hint of honey.

I roughly chopped up a bunch of organic red cabbage -- perhaps a quarter of a head. Then I lightly chopped a handful of chantrelles that I had washed and gently cleaned with a brush.

Because I was in a hurry, I used the microwave instead of a stovetop.

The cabbage was tossed in with the dressing and the mixture nuked on my oven's Vegetable setting, until it started the final countdown. I paused the oven, tossed in the chantrelles, and let the bowl cook for the remaining twenty or so seconds.

That's it! I served this dish with wild salmon and added a splash of lingonberry jam. The cabbage turns purple with cooking, so with the gold of the chantrelles against the salmon, lingonberries, pepper flakes, and cabbage, it was an autumn feast for the eyes.

Other mushrooms I've tried since then include Oyster, Portobello and Shiitake. Oyster and Chantrelle remain my favorites, being so delicate and fragrant.