Food Blog

Salads are simple to make, but if you avoid treating it like filler food they can become a great meals. When every bite contains something special, it makes it very satisfying. This spring salad contains all kinds of greens, all from Henry’s Farm. At the Evanston farmer’s market, they sell a bag of mixed greens with all kinds of interesting things in it. Some of the leaves are a bit holey, but that’s organic farming. I also included lots of mizuna. Here’s a good page that’ll help identify some gourmet lettuces.

But it wasn’t just the greens that made this salad, it was the chanterelles and earthy morels and the richness of the port reduction. The nutty, chewy shrooms, the intense flavor of the reduction, the tiny strings of crunchy, spicy daikon, all combine with the slightly tangy greens for a complete range of flavors and textures.

• as many chanterelles as you can afford, this recipe was made with $6 worth, about a small berry container’s worth
  
• as many morels as you can afford, I had about five thumb sized ones
  
• a bag of mixed spring greens form Henry’s Farm, no substitutions allowed since I can’t tell you everything that’s in there. I’ll take some notes at next week’s market.
  
• a handfull of mizuna
  
• about 2 inches worth of a finely grated daikon
  
• 6-8 asparagus tips, small (I forgot to add them before the photo)
  
• 1 shallot
  
• 1 sprig of green garlic
  
• 1 sprig of chive
  
• 5-6 ozs. of port
  
• 2 T butter
  

Wash and dry the greens thoroughly. I don’t like to wash mushrooms, but with morels and chanterelles you need to soak them for a bit, then wipe them off with a paper towel or you really will achieve earthyness in your salad. Melt a tablespoon of butter in a saute pan and toss in the morels first for a minute, then the chanterelles. When they start taking on color, toss in about half the chopped shallot and minced green garlic (young garlic before it begins forms cloves, it looks like a baby leek). Pull out the mushrooms before they get too tanned and pour in the port. Throw in the other half of the shallot and some more chive and reduce until it bubbly, and add the other tablespoon of butter and reduce gently until it thickly coats a spoon.

To assemble, throw down the bed of greens, spread the shrooms on top and annoint the salad with the reduction shaking spoonfulls of the rich stuff over everything. The idea is not to soak everything, just to have drops of it everywhere. The flavor of the chanterelles is too special to cover over with anything. Spread the tiny slivers of daikon on top. Oh, dont’ forget the asparagus. I’ve been just lightly boiling mine in water, a splash of lime juice and a taste of rice wine.

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This plate of rich risotto, morels, asparagus and cream chive sauce actually takes less than 30 minutes if you get the timing right. Also note that this is the first vegetarian dish featured here. I used the fresh stuff I got from the farmer’s market this weekend.

You can follow Simmerstock’s recipe or this lemony mushroom risotto from Epicurious. Cooking risotto while sauteing the mushrooms and preparing the other ingredients is a great way to sharpen your cooking prowess. Risotto requires constant attention and frequent stirring, but at $32 a pound, you don’t want to wander from your morels either. But I need to be honest with my readers, I used a boxed risotto. You still need to keep an eye on it and stir it once in a while, but it only took twenty minutes.

Packaged Risotto or ingredients from above recipes
At least 3 large morels, and 4-5 smaller ones
3-4 ozs of mixed mushrooms – oysters, shitakes, or other woodsy shrooms
3-4 sprigs of fresh chives, I used some asian flat leaf chives.
1 T goat cheese
2 baby leeks
6-7 asparagus tips
2 shallots
heavy cream
butter

While cooking the risotto, saute the other mushrooms in some butter, with a chopped shallot. When the shrooms are brown, deglaze the pan with some sherry, add some chopped chives. In a separate pan, boil some chopped leeks for about 40 seconds. Add to the mushrooms, add a tablespoon of goat cheese and mince in a food processor.

You’ll need some big morels if you want to properly stuff them, plus some smaller ones for garnish. I had three big morels and four or five small ones. I cut the stems off and sliced the small ones lengthwise.

Saute all the morels in plenty of butter and add some more chopped chives, than whisk in some cream. After a minute remove the morels from the sauce, shaking off the excess. Stuff the big morels with the minced shrooms mixture, leaving a big dollop overflowing at the top. Lay on a cooking sheet or pan and lightly broil until the stuffing on top browns. Don’t burn the morels! Or you can do like the restaurants and cheat – put a few dollops of stuffing on a sheet of tin foil, put it under the broiler and when its brown, take them out and stick them on the top of your morels.

Boil the asparagus tips in a bit of rice wine and more chives, just until tender. Slice some leeks thinly and throw in the boiling liquid for about twenty seconds.

Plate everything – first put a pile of risotto in the center of the plate, arrange the asparagus tips and slices of morels around the pile. Put the stuffed morels on the pile of risotto. Drizzle the cream sauce over everything and drape the thinly sliced leeks on top of the pile.

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