If You Love Mushrooms...........
If You Love Mushrooms………..
This post has been updated many times. Most recently because Weber’s of Ann Arbor has ditched their signature mushroom sauté small plate that was served in a small frying pan. Sacrilege!!
UPDATE: The column below was originally written back in 2018 after a trip to SW Michigan for golfing and we discovered that it was mushroom season. Since then, we’ve moved to Ann Arbor so we now typically meet with Alice’s family in Lansing to best accommodate those from GR, the Thumb and us in Ann Arbor. It’s also an easy drive for our grand niece who is an MSU student. Though we had been to the Horrocks on Saginaw Hwy many years ago until a few months ago, we had never really noticed what an interesting offering of produce (great mushroom selection) and interesting meat including large well-fed rabbits. Most of the rabbits we’ve seen in stores look more like squirrels they’re so small. So, back to mushrooms. Alice had noticed a recipe in the WINE ENTHUSIAST magazine for mushroom carpaccio which really looked good. It turned out that it made a wonderful appetizer because of the savory flavor and the bright lemon infused dressing really whets the appetite without filling you up. While at Horrocks we found what appears to be the very mushroom which is ideal for that recipe. The original recipe calls for porcini but I believe it is the same mushroom that Horrocks labels royal trumpets. Here is the recipe:
INGREDIENTS 12 ounces (or less) of fresh mushrooms (porcini/trumpets) sliced thin longwise 2 Tbs fresh squeezed lemon juice 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil 1 tsp fine sea salt 5 oz blue cheese crumbled 1/4 cup tender celery leaves 2 Tbs chives minced 2 Tbs toasted garlic or dried garlic granules 1 Tbs fresh marjoram leaves or fresh chopped parsley mixed with some dried marjoram
Lay the mushrooms on a large platter. Whisk together the lemon juice, olive oil and salt and drizzle over the mushrooms but don’t drown them. Allow to sit one hour. Sprinkle with blue cheese, celery leaves, chives, garlic and marjoram. Enjoy!
Original Column from May 4, 2018
If you love mushrooms, your time of the year is coming. Or, is it already here? The Village Corner in Ann Arbor, has been branching out into comestibles in addition to the state’s best selection of wines and spirits. It is a small shop, but, every single item in the shop is there because either Dick Scheer or his wife Sally, believe it to be the best representative of its type in the marketplace. So, even though the new store doesn’t have over 5000 wines like the old store, consider every bottle the best of its type. Google it and check out the “stock lists annotated”. If you are a real wine geek, it will blow you away and yes, they actually have all this stuff in stock. Sally has really gotten into fresh and local. She has sourced ramps and hen of the woods mushrooms from Michigan growers. They are awesome! She has also sourced cultivated morels from, are you ready for this?????? China! Not too local, but, the price is right and honestly, they are hard to tell from wild picked other than that there are no worms and no sand. The wild do have an extra ephemeral layer of intensely woodsy forest floor subtleties that Alice suggests probably comes from the worms. I’m not suggesting that you don’t buy Michigan morels during the couple of weeks that they are in season, but, it appears that the Chinese mushrooms will have a pretty wide season.
We were in Ann Arbor over Easter and got ourselves a stash of the above delicacies plus, of course, we stopped at Zingerman’s for several loaves of Pain de Montagne. Their breads hold up very well when frozen soon after purchase.
Here is our basic mushroom recipe. It can be made with pretty much any kind of or combination of mushrooms, but, has an exotic cache when morels are included. We originally encountered this presentation at Weber’s* in Ann Arbor decades ago and although they did not give us the recipe, I’m pretty sure my interpretation is spot on, maybe better. The other recipe that I’ve included here is one from our dear friend Gene Jacobs’ deceased father affectionately known as “Jake’s Drunken Mushrooms”. Again, pretty much any kind of mushroom works fine even white button mushrooms. UPDATE: Our Ann Arbor condo neighbor Ewa who is from Poland discovered that we have “slippery Jack” mushrooms growing in our lawn. We had no idea that they were edible. Ewa showed us how to peel the cellophane-like skin off the caps revealing a soft deliciously wild delicacy. Who knew?
WEBER’S* MUSHROOMS
½ pound of sliced or torn mushrooms Cracked pepper 5 tablespoons butter 1/2 cup chopped shallots 1 clove crushed and minced garlic (or a few ramps, leaves and all) Tiny pinch of crushed red pepper 1/3 cup Cognac or Madiera 1/2 cup cream 1/2 beef or mushroom bouillon cube TINY pinch of truffle salt If using morels, cut each one in half lengthwise and rinse in water to make sure there is no sand or worms in them. Drain on paper towels. Get a pan to medium high heat. Add the butter and as soon as it starts to sizzle, add the mushrooms. Once the mushrooms brown up on both sides, remove them from the pan then lower heat and add shallots, garlic and red pepper flakes. As soon as the garlic is just starting to brown, add the black pepper, bouillon, just a whiff of truffle salt, the Cognac and allow the vapors to evaporate or flame it off if you are into the show and your fire insurance is up to date. Reduce heat to low and add the cream. As soon as the cream starts to thicken, add the morels back in, blend it together and serve over toast points with a teeny tiny wisp of truffle salt or pasta with a garnish of grated cheese. Note, if using dried morels, leave them in the pan during the entire process and make sure they soak for quite a while before starting and let them steep in the cream cognac mixture or they may be a little crunchy.
*Bad News! We had dinner at Weber’s last night and they’ve changed the recipe. The new “Mushroom Sauté” is absolutely nothing like our recipe and looks and tastes like something out of a box. They claim everything is house made so I shouldn’t question that but, if it is house made, it is in a style that any commissary would be proud to call “school lunch”. The mushrooms are not sautéed, the bread not toasted, and the sauce is a pretty basic (out of a jar?) type of white cheese sauce. So disappointing. 9/11/2025 ABC
VARIATION Being that we had hen of the woods mushrooms and ramps, we added them to the recipe above and deleted the shallots and garlic. The ramps have quite an aroma, easily taking the place of the shallots and garlic.
JAKE’S DRUNKEN MUSHROOMS 3 tablespoons butter ½ pound of mushrooms ½ cup of shallots 3 cloves crushed and minced garlic ½ crushed beef or mushroom bouillon cube ¼ cup sweet vermouth ½ cup of dark red wine Put the butter into a medium hot pan and as soon as it starts to sizzle, add the mushrooms cooking until they brown up. Add the shallots and garlic. As soon as they start to brown, add the bouillon and the vermouth. When it mostly evaporates, add the wine a little at a time so that the mushrooms are nicely coated but not swimming in the wine.
WINE PAIRING Alice and I totally disagree on this one. I have yet to have a wine aged in Bourbon barrels that tastes right to me. Apothic Inferno is maybe the best I’ve had and even though it is okay, aging it in a regular wine barrel would have been better. While at Sam’s Club, Alice spotted a bottle of 2015 Stave & Steel California Bourbon Barrel Aged Cabernet Sauvignon. It’s a novel concept attempted by cash strapped home winemakers since prohibition, but, to my taste more of an oddity than a good idea. Any book on winemaking will expound at length that no matter how thrifty or utilitarian it may seem at the time, “never ever under any circumstances should a winemaker ever consider putting a good wine into a used Bourbon barrel”. There are many reasons why putting wine in a Bourbon barrel is a big mistake but, at its root is the way in which the wood staves are dried. So what happens to the wine? In this case, the Stave & Steel starts with a nice deep black red color. Clearly the nose is oak influenced but not in the typical sweet, smoky, chocolaty sense but more in a toast and jelly sense with an underlying smoke element. This wine doesn’t have much Cab flavor or texture. I’m not sure if it is the result of the barrels or if the wine just has a pretty passive character to begin with. Not my favorite. Alice, on the other hand, loved it, felt it was complex, balanced, with flavors that lingered well to pair nicely with the mushrooms and the marinated flank steak we enjoyed with it.
Enjoy in Good Health, Brian Cain, the Michigan Vintner
