Cisco with Fragrant Black Trumpets and Summer Greens

Here’s a simple salad you can make with wild shrooms. I made this specifically for fragrant black trumpets, but many different wild mushrooms would work here, just make sure all of your ingredients are the best you can find.

It’s easy: gather a salad, cook some fish, then saute some mushrooms in a large amount of butter with a little lemon and spoon it on top. Easy-peasy. I had fish on hand, so that’s what I used, you could easily leave out the fish entirely or add a chicken leg in it’s place, or just have mushroom vinaigrette and greens, etc.

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Cisco with Fragrant Black Trumpets and Summer Greens

A fresh salad of garden greens with lake cisco, and warm fragrant trumpet mushrooms

Course: Main Course, Salad

Cuisine: French

Keyword: Black Trumpet Mushrooms, Lake Cisco

Servings: 2

Ingredients

• 2 three ounce filets of cisco a.k.a tillabee or lake herring, or another mild lake fish, like brown trout
• Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper
• 4 oz unsalted butter
• Fresh lemon juice or champagne vinegar to taste
• 1 T fresh cut chives
• 1 T flavorless cooking oil for sauteing the fish and mushrooms
• A couple fresh thyme sprigs and a clove of garlic whacked with your fist, for basting the fish (optional)
• 3 ounces of salad greens per person or more depending on appetite
• 3 ounces  a good handful“fragrant” black trumpets, cleaned
• For the summer greens use whatever is the freshest, but steer towards sweet greens, as opposed to those that are more bitter, like frisee or chicory, a little won’t hurt, but don’t overdo the bitter. Here’s what I picked from the yard:
• Daylily flowers
• Purslane
• Wild lettuces
• Dandelions
• Lettuce hearts
• Speckled romaine leaves
• Fresh sliced radishes

Instructions

• Gather your greens, whatever you’re using, then clean in cold water if needed and dry. I like to roll fresh greens up very gently in a towel to soak up extra water if they are saturated, since that will dilute any dressing. Reserve the greens until needed.
• Season the fish with salt and pepper. Heat the butter on medium heat in a large saute pan until it toasts, and begins to smell like nuts, then add the fish, skin side down, and the fragrant trumpets. Cook until the fish is caramelized and golden on the underside and the mushrooms are cooked through.
• Next Add the thyme sprigs and garlic clove to the pan, then continue to cook the fish, skin side down, basting occasionally with the fat from the pan, until just cooked through. If the fish starts to fall apart, you have over cooked it, be careful.
• To plate the dish, arrange the greens on plates, then top with the fish and mushrooms, reserving the browned butter left over in the pan for the vinaigrette. Add a shot or two of lemon juice or vinegar to the pan, along with the chives, season lightly to taste with salt and pepper, (taste it to make sure it’s great and adjust as needed) then drizzle the vinaigrette over each salad and serve immediately.

More 

The Forager’s Guide to Black Trumpet Mushrooms