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The Yellow Leccinum Mushroom: Boletus / Leccinum Subglabripes

goldstalk boletes boletus ornatipes wild mushrooms minnesota forager chef

With yellow pores and stem, a light brown cap and not staining when cut, these are easy to pick out

Throughout my experience hunting mushrooms in Minnesota, I can definitely say I have seen a greater variety of boletes than any other mushroom. There are a ton of different species though, and they can be difficult to identify. Their colors may shift and change with age, after being cut or bruised, yellow can turn to green, pink to brown. As well when dropped in a bag with other mushrooms or having been jostled around a bit, many will stain and change color as well and I have come home a number of times with a few unidentifiable, black bruised boletes.

These striking yellow boletes were a great find a couple years back, and were a great exercise in bolete identification.

leccinum subglabripes

This one’s mature, look out for bugs!

Story goes that my friend and I went up to Northern Minnesota during the late summer to hunt lobster mushrooms and Leccinums. We were in the northern 1/3 of Minnesota-an area I don’t get to explore often. Because the northern portion of the state is a very different terrain, similar to taiga, we tend to see a somewhat different variety of fungus than in the southern 2/3 of the state, where it’s mostly hardwoods, as opposed to the conifer, birch and aspen woods of the north.

Identification

After misidentifying it a couple times, we finally came upon Leccinum subglabripes. If you know a thing or two about boletes, it gets easier to make some distinctions about it. Firstly these are yellow, very yellow, yellow stem with bright yellow pores and a light brown cap that darkens with age. It’s shape is similar to a leccinum in that it has a long, thin stem, and has pores instead of gills. It’s stem lacks the bulbous-ness you sometimes see in boletes though.

Another tell tale characteristic is that these don’t bruise at all when sliced, but what’s truly confusing is that even though it’s placed in the Leccinum family right now, it lacks the little black hairs or fibrils on it’s stem which is indicative of the species.

Cooking

In the kitchen, these act like any other bolete, they love to be dried and it concentrates their flavor. They’re a natural to add to soups, sauces and gravies and make decent pickles too.

There is one thing that I would mention though as far as eating goes, and that’s that until further research is done, I would be careful about eating them fresh. I have had severe gastro intestinal distress from certain members of the leccinum family, but only fresh, and under-cooked. I have never had a problem eating any species of Leccinum dried. Since their flavor is much richer post drying, and since being a bolete they have a relatively short shelf life, I suggest you dry these to enjoy them, or make sure you cook them very well.

Recipes

Recipes I’ve made for boletes or where they can be substituted. These will make a great addition to mushroom blends, fresh or dried.

  • Wild Mushroom Conserve
  • Wild Mushroom Duxelles
  • Dried Wild Mushroom Duxelles
  • Fresh Bolete Butter
  • Fresh Boletes With Radish Snaps and Peas
  • Fresh Bolete Julienne
  • Baby Chicken With Bolete-Wine Sauce
  • Mixed Wild Mushrooms With Persillade
  • Cream of Bolete Soup With Black Walnut Pesto
  • Shrimp With Bolete Infused Soy-Brandy Cream
  • Dried Bolete Infused Soy Sauce
  • Porcini-Pike Bolognese
  • Dried Bolete Crusted Pheasant
  • Shortribs With Dried Boletes and Root Vegetables
  • Beef Commercial With Dried Boletes
  • Dried Bolete-Cheese Fritters
  • Homemade Ricotta Cheese With Dried Boletes
  • Dried Bolete Gnudi Dumplings
  • Fresh Boletes Cooked In Sour Cream
goldstalk bolete, boletus ornatipes minnesota wild mushrooms forager chef

Young ones like this might be bug free, I like them before their cap opens up.

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Related

Previous Post: « Cisco, Chanterelles, Daylilies, Endamame, and Soy-Vinegar Sauce.
Next Post: Ash Tree Boletes or Boletinellus Mushrooms »

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Kate

    August 23, 2015 at 12:41 am

    Wondering which leccinums gave you intestinal distress? Been reading about “red capped” leccinums being the culprit but I’m yet to experience this myself, though I’ve always consumed previously dried leccinums.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      August 29, 2015 at 1:02 pm

      Hi Kate, red-capped Leccinums picked under pine were the culprits. Id be careful with red-capped aspen boletes too.

      Reply
      • Kate

        August 30, 2015 at 1:46 am

        Hmm.. thanks for the warning, was the cap really red, or are we talking about a birch bolete like… sort of orange?

        Reply
        • Alan Bergo

          August 31, 2015 at 10:08 am

          It was very, very red, almost sanguine. Check my post on scaber stalks for some pictures.

          Reply
          • Kate

            August 31, 2015 at 10:18 am

            Good to know, thank you

  2. Stephanie Dareing

    September 1, 2018 at 11:06 am

    I have been pulling these up for this first year of
    Them showing up. Not knowing anything about
    Them, I disposed them!
    Maybe we will try them.

    Reply
    • Alan Bergo

      September 3, 2018 at 4:43 pm

      They’re a great little mushroom. I don’t see them too often up here in MN.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Dried Bolete Or Russula Soy Sauce says:
    July 11, 2014 at 10:32 am

    […] Leccinum subglabripes is another bolete I have used for this, it gave great results too. […]

    Reply
  2. Dried Wild Mushroom Ravioli Recipe says:
    January 21, 2020 at 6:34 pm

    […] have a much stronger flavor than any bolete I pick in the United States. For these, I’m using Hemileccinum subglabripes. As for the overall technique, it’s really simple: you make a mushroom puree you put in both […]

    Reply

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🌱Ephemeral Week🌱 Last entry. I’ve saved t 🌱Ephemeral Week🌱

Last entry. I’ve saved the smallest, fern gulliest plant for last. 

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Mermaid weed likes wet areas, like ditches and spots that hold a bit of water (perfect mosquito habitat😁). 

Like chickweed, Floerkia greens are like nature’s Microgreens. They’re in the Limnanthaceae, (a new-ish group of brassicas) and like the Toothwort form earlier this week, you’ll taste a strong mustard-family flavor in a mouthful of their tender stems. 

They’re literally wild mustard sprouts, and, unlike other wild sprouts (garlic mustard 🤬) they stay sprouts, and, they actually taste good. 

It has a wide range over much of the eastern and western U.S., and is listed as secure globally, but is endangered in some states and shouldn’t be disturbed in those places. 

I’m lucky enough to have some large colonies near me so I do clip a few handfuls each year-my annual reward for removing some of the garlic mustard nearby, that, along with atvs, dirt bikes, and contamination from local water pollution, is one of the biggest threats to this tiny green. 

#floerkiaproserpinacoides 
#wildsprouts #mustardsprouts #ferngully #tiny #foraging #mermaid #🧜‍♀️
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Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are one of the most beautiful harbingers of spring I know, as well as one of the most delicious. 

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They’re a beautiful, delicious plant I eat every year, but I can’t recommend serving them to the general public. Plenty of people say these are edible, but also emetic if eaten in “quantity”. 

I can tell you, at least with E. albidum and E. americanum I’ve eaten, that some people are much more sensitive than others, so if you want to make a salad to serve people, make sure they’re comfortable eating it, and use a few leaves as a garnish. 

Funny enough, I didn’t learn about these from a foraging book. Like knotweed, I learned about them from one of my favorite chefs: Michel Bras, one of the most influential chefs of the turn of the 21 century. 

Any chef that works with wild plants owes a debt to Bras. His book, although a little dated now, still teaches me new things all the time. While flipping through the book I also caught a recipe using tansy flowers 😳 that I’d probably pass on. 

The whitefish crusted with sunflower seeds is a dish of mine from 2012, and an example of how I eat the leaves: a few at a time, as a garnish. 

#troutlily #erythronium #michelbras #ephemerals #foraging
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Plant #3: Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata) is another beautiful spring wildflower that loves to grow in the same habitat you’ll see ramps and spring beauty. 

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Plant #2 is Virginia waterleaf, and, I’m cheating a bit as it’s semi-ephemeral. The plant comes up in spring and goes to flower, but gives a second harvest of fresh growth in the fall, where other ephemerals I know do not. 

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