wild about chanterelles.

My love for all things mushroom hunting is not new information to any readers of this blog. It's a fortunate inconvenience that Lo and I have been too busy with life and careers to get out in the woods and do some hunting. It's especially frustrating given all of the fungus hunting successes I have been hearing about since the chanterelles started to pop. Yesterday I took some time to check out my chanterelle spot and it happily provided me with a dozen or so nice size chanterelles and one big early season chicken of the woods. Maybe it's a sign that this fall is going to be a jubilee of mushroom picking and hot cider sipping. It seemed like a good reason to celebrate with food. I called up Clancey's butcher shop in South Minneapolis and checked on their rabbit inventory. I was in luck, chanterelle rabbit sausage with basil was on the menu for the night. 

Lo was out of town so I was cooking for a friend and I didn't take down a recipe. If you are really interested let me know, I can come up with one.

I had some raddichio and endive laying around so the menu was set - Chanterelle rabbit sausage, grilled raddichio with braised endive, and grilled apricot.

I tend to enjoy apricot paired with chanterelles as I find the mushrooms have a similar scent to apricots and juxtaposed, it really brings out the fruitiness of the shrooms.

I have to say, I think the dish was a success as I designed it, but it was even better when I added a fried egg on top the next night. A good mushroom hunt supplies multiple feasts!

As a side note to the novice shroom hunter - the most imortant thing to remember while foraging for wild mushrooms is to positively ID the mushrooms before you eat them, it's VERY important.

Happy hunting and happy eating.