Once I started reading about traditional ways to preserve mushrooms around the world, one of the first ones I came across was salted wild mushrooms, an old stand-by used in plenty of places, but most notably Eastern Europe. It’s not that popular in America, but one trip to a market with an Eastern European ownership…
Milkcap Mushrooms
Lactarius thyinos, a type of saffron milkcap I harvest in Northern Minnesota.
Milkcap mushrooms are an intermediate skill-level mushroom, but are very easy to get the hang of. My favorites are Lactarius thyinos and lactifluus volemus. Use them in just about any recipe you like, but especially in simple recipes like mushrooms with garlic and parsley, and mushroom pickles. They also make delicious lactarius broth.
Lactarius thyinos
One of the best parts of modern mushroom hunting is the amount of information that gets shared on a daily basis. Tons of information and observations are shared daily, and depending on how many groups and regions you pay attention to, there’s a lot you can glean without having to leave your home. A great…
Baby Bok Choy In Lactarius Broth With Quail Eggs
Here’s a recipe I created to use dried Lactarius salmoneus, donated to the Cascade Mycological Society for their cookbook. When powdered and made into a broth, you’d be hard pressed to say it isn’t chicken stock. From my experience, different dried Lactarius resembling deliciosus, rubrilactus, and sanguifluus will give similar results. The recipe is designed…
Saffron Milkcaps With Chickpeas, Tomato, and Gran Queso
In Spain, hands down the most famous is the rovellon, or saffron milkcap. This particular recipe I made for the Cascade Mycological society’s cookbook. Chickpeas are popular in Spanish cuisine, and gran queso is a famous, slightly salty cheese from the region. Combining the chickpeas and cheese with a little chopped, peeled tomato, and some…
Bleeding Milkcaps / Lactarius Sanguifluus
From my experience, finding Lactarius that are good for the table is tough. There’s always bugs to compete with, but they just aren’t as reliable as a good old chanterelle, black trumpet, chicken/hen of the woods, or morels where I live. One year I’ll see more than you can pick with a wheelbarrow, then next…
Catalan Saffron Milkcaps
I got wind of a cookbook project and began talking with the Cascade Mycological Society behind it last week. They were looking for dishes featuring lactarius and slippery jack species, and just so happens I had a few recipes laying around I hadn’t shared. I agreed to donate 6 dishes or so for their book,…
Turkish Saffron Milkcaps With Cumin Yoghurt
I never dreamed talking to the open air would connect me with mushroom hunters from around the world, but it did. I used to be a little self conscious talking about my hunting “habit”. It’s just that where I live in Minnesota, to the great majority of people the term “wild mushroom” refers to morels,…
Fricando Of Veal With Saffron Milk Caps
With a fridge full of saffron milkcaps, I started doing research on any cultures that might use them in traditional recipes. Of course the first way I tasted them was simply sautéed last year, and I thought them ok, the specimens I had were not the greatest though, and now that I am aware…
Hunting Old Knowledge, And Saffron Milk Caps.
Contrary to what I believed before, the saffron milk cap doesn’t grow riddled with bugs and in small quantities, it may be harvested in pristine condition, and in quantity in Minnesota I had just about given up on Minnesota this year. A funny thing happened last week though; we got rain, plenty of rain. Enough…
Saffron Milk Caps
Saffron milkcaps, a crunchy, tasty mushroom that have been enjoyed for millenia. Supposedly milkcaps were one of the first mushrooms to be used in cooking that we have evidence of, featured in a fresco from the Roman ruins of Herculaneum. In modern-day, the saffron milkcap is pretty much the national mushroom of Spain, where it’s…
Pickled Milkcap Mushrooms
When you read about preserving milkcap mushrooms, you might read about salting, fermenting or brining, which if you’re not already an intrepid experimenter can sound like some strange wizardry. One of my favorite things to do with mushrooms is to pickle them, after which I add them to salads, stir fries, and whatever else I…