My friend and I went out mushrooming last weekend. We were looking for lobsters but it was pretty late in the season to find any so we weren't sure we'd have any luck. We did find a few- enough to play with a little. But we also found *porcini.*
Clearly I was pretty excited about this find. ;) I've seen many boletes but have never found a King Bolete in real life before. It was exciting- like a grown-up treasure hunt.
I took my bounty home and after much debating decided to make a savory salad out of it, loosely based on a cookbook my cousin gave me for Christmas, "Shroom." It's a pretty good cookbook, though I find that most of the recipes are a little too involved for me. I figure that if you're going to go to the work of finding your own wild mushrooms, why cover up the unique flavors with too many spices and too much cooking? (Though you should always cook your mushrooms! Never eat ANY mushrooms raw!) But in this instance, it was bang-on. I kind of made up my own recipe for my salad very loosely based on one in this book. Here's what I did:
I sliced up my porcini into thin slices and tossed with some olive oil. I then roasted it for about 20 minutes at 400F, flipping halfway through. I wanted it to get soft and shed most of its liquid. Meanwhile, I sliced up some avocado and plated it. Then I sprinkled on thinly-sliced celery and fresh parsley leaves. I whipped up a dressing of lemon zest, lemon juice, and olive oil. I tossed some pine nuts in with the mushrooms for the last 5 minutes of roasting, then piled the mushrooms and nuts on top of my green salad. Topped with the dressing and some shavings of parmesan cheese and it was all done! Very easy and VERY GOOD. Seriously. This was the best thing I have eaten in a while. Creamy avocado, nutty mushrooms (they tasted like butter!), crunchy celery, and zesty lemon. Mmm. I'll definitely be trying this one again!
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