Friday, May 12, 2017

Shrooms--Another Reason To Love Montana

 
 
By the time you read this, it'll be too late. They will be gone but this year, instead of kicking myself thinking I should have put some effort into finding these little edible fungi, I got lucky and just so happened to go for a pee break right in the middle of a huge patch these morels. I stopped off on an island the other day while guiding some folks and in about 10 minutes, was able to pick about a grocery bag full of these wildly sought after gems to the mushroom world. They were already drying out so I'm guessing it's only a matter of days and they will all be gone.
 
I remember as a kid, my parents would drag us out into the woods to pick these things. I was never very good at hunting them but my parents were and we would get bucket loads of them. My mom would fry them or dry them and although everyone would go nuts over them; for the life of me, I could never figure out why. They didn't taste very good and they were a pain in the ass...well, my tune has change. These things are fricken' delicious and easy to prepare.
 
The first thing you have to do is find them. There is a short window when they will appear and I can't tell you when to look or even where because I don't really have a clue. I've spent hours looking for them in Wisconsin only to find two. Yeah, two whole mushrooms so it wasn't enough to do anything with. More recently, Jill and I have searched the islands on the Mo with very little success. We only found a handful, which was just enough to sauté and put on our steaks. It was good but hardly worth the effort. This year, I hit the jackpot and although I didn't spend enough time picking to amount to bushels of them (but I probably could have,) I do have enough to experiment a little. This is experiment one and I have to say, I could have eaten ten pounds of them tonight.
 
Real quick; all you have to do is get a little flour, some egg wash, garlic salt, pepper, and parsley. Have one dish of plain flour, dip the shrooms in the flour, then the egg wash and then in a mixture of the spices and more flour. You can use different spices if you want. In fact, I think Cajun will have to be a part of the next experiment. Then just fry them like you would chicken, only not nearly as long and there you go. A little salt to finish and OH MY HECK!
 

 
It's not even fair and I know when they are all gone I'm going to be dreaming about next spring when I can hunt them again. Stay tuned for more...
 
Oh yeah, and for even more reasons to love Montana, check out the new episode of The Montana Dream Cast! https://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-qawt9-6ab751
 
Keep 'em where they live...
 


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