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Wild Mushroom Chowder

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Wild Mushroom Chowder with hericium and yellowfoot chanterelles A good, simple chowder made with wild mushrooms has been a reader request for a while here that I finally got around to posting. It comes together in just under an hour, and is a good way to use some fresh or dried wild mushrooms if you need a bowl of comfort food. 

A soup for light-colored mushrooms 

Of course, you can make this with just about any mushroom, but there’s something really special about making it with light-colored mushrooms, or those that don’t produce a dark juice.

Yellowfoot chanterelles

Yellowfoot chanterelles are great here.

This can highlight the light color of a few particular mushrooms, and is a great way to show them off, because lets be honest here: there’s about 1 billion recipes for chowder out there, but none, other than this one (at least at the time of writing) for a dedicated wild mushroom chowder. Here’s some species that you should consider using if you come upon some: 

Recommended Species 

Chicken of the woods

Chicken of the woods will make a beautiful yellow-hued chowder. 

Golden Chanterelles 

Golden chanterelles will lend a subtle orange color, along with their tell-tale aroma.

Yellowfoot Chanterelles 

Yellowfoot chanterelles love simple soups like this, and it’s a great way to show them off. 

Lobster Mushrooms 

Lobsters mushrooms will make the most intensely colored mushroom chowder of all, with a rich orange color. 

Hericium / Lions Mane 

Hericium are a good cultivated or wild option, although the wild ones will add more flavor. Cultivated ones are best used in combination with other mushrooms. (Real quick, before you put these in chowder though, you should try my Lions Mane Crabcakes first) 

King Oyster 

Another good cultivated option, if you use these I would add some crumbled dried mushrooms (chanterelles) too. 

To make a vegetarian version

I know some of you that requested this are vegetarians. It’s easy to adapt this recipe to not include meat, but you may want to add some additional mushrooms to pump up the umami. Here’s how I’d do that: 

Substitute butter or oil for the bacon fat, and obviously skip the bacon and use mushroom stock instead of the chicken or vegetable stock. Add some dried mushrooms rehydrated in the stock along with the fresh mushrooms to boost the umami. 

Wild Mushroom Chowder with hericium and yellowfoot chanterelles

Wild Mushroom Chowder with hericium and yellowfoot chanterelles
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Wild Mushroom Chowder

A simple mushroom chowder made with your choice of fresh or dried mushrooms.
Prep Time15 mins
Cook Time45 mins
Course: Lunch, Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Chowder, Wild mushrooms
Servings: 4

Ingredients

Liaison

  • 6 oz bacon (optional) sliced into ½ inch strips
  • ½ cup all purpose flour

Soup

  • 12 oz fresh wild or cultivated mushrooms *see note
  • 8 oz russet potatoes diced ½ inch (2 cups)
  • 3 oz 3/4 cup diced carrot
  • 4 oz 1 small finely chopped onion
  • 4 oz 2 ribs celery, trimmed and diced ½ inch
  • ½ cup dry white wine
  • 1 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 2 dried bay leaves
  • 5 cups light colored chicken or vegetable stock
  • 1 cup heavy cream

For serving

  • Fresh chopped herbs especially chives, dill, or tarragon
  • Wedges of fresh lemon

Instructions

  • Render the bacon on medium heat in the soup pot you will cook the chowder in. While the bacon renders, chop the vegetables and mushrooms.
  • When the bacon has given up most of it’s fat, drain off the fat into a small mixing bowl and reserve. Cool the fat for a few minutes, then stir in the flour and reserve, it should make a loose paste.
  • Add all the soup ingredients except the cream to the pot with the bacon, cover, bring to a simmer, turn the heat to low and cook for 20 minutes, or until the vegetables are tender.
  • When the vegetables are tender, scrape the flour paste into the soup, whisk briskly, and simmer until thickened and you can see the flour has activated. Thickening soup this way is called using a “beurre manie”.
  • Add the cream to the chowder, mix to combine and heat through. Do not boil it.
  • Finally, double check the seasoning one last time, adjust as needed, and serve, garnished with the herbs and lemon wedges on the side.

Notes

* I prefer light colored mushrooms here for a mellow flavor, but you can use what you like. Chanterelles are particularly good.
*Using dried mushrooms
1 oz of dried mushrooms can be substituted for the fresh mushrooms, or you could use a combination. If you use dried mushrooms, rehydrate them in some of the chicken stock for 15 minutes, judge their shape and size, chopping coarsely if needed, making sure to agitate them around to remove grit that you will strain out or make sure not to add to the chowder.

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Toothwort is peaking right now. Makes a great garn Toothwort is peaking right now. Makes a great garnish. Here with @shepherdsongfarm goat tartare, ramp vinaigrette and wild rice sourdough. It adds a nice bitter, mustardy note. 

#cutleaftoothwort #cardamineconcatenata #goat #tartare #normalizegoatmeat
Consider the salad, here, a little mix of ephemera Consider the salad, here, a little mix of ephemerals, and other tender young plants and herbs. 

The instinctual knowledge involved in choosing different plants at their peak to serve together raw, with thought put into how the textures and flavors will work on someone’s palette, to me, is one of the highest forms of culinary artistry. Something most people will never taste in their life. 

A little oil, salt, pepper, acid, a touch of sweetness from maple, maybe few fresh herbs are all you need. Bottled dressing of any kind would be like putting Axe Body spray on food. 

#spring #ephemerals #toothwort #troutlily #springbeauty #foraging
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Mermaid weed likes wet areas, like ditches and spots that hold a bit of water (perfect mosquito habitat😁). 

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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 
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Allium burdickii is not as common as the red-stemmed variety, and in every ramp patch I’ve been in, the white ramp is heavily outnumbered. 

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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. 

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