The chanterelle or kukeseen is the cream of mushrooms in Estonia, and many other places too. We often joined friends in the search for this striking, orangey-yellow delicacy, or looked for them ourselves. The chanterelle seems to prefer spruce forest where moss and sorrel grow, and spring up where human feet have earlier trodden. We soon learned to recognise chanterelle habitat, although we didn’t always find them.
Ecologist and writer Valdur Mikita likens mushroomers to hunters; both can easily fixate on locating their prey, and losing their way in the forest. Greg is a natural forest navigator, fortunately, and, anyway, there are cellphone maps.
Cooking chanterelles takes many forms: from boiling them over a campfire to spread on slabs of rye bread, to various sauces, to a delicious, creamy accompaniment to linguini we enjoyed at a summer kitchen in pine forest.
I did not find out the recipe for this sauce; however, if I ever get a chance to cook them myself – no chanterelles in New Zealand - I would adapt a Swiss recipe, from Zurich, and substitute out the champignons.
Slowly sauté in butter a finely chopped white onion and a fair quantity of sliced chanterelles – clean the dirt off them first with a paper towel. You know when they start cooking from the delicious aroma. Finely chopped garlic is optional at this point; sauté for half a minute or so. Then add a glass of white wine, eg sauvignon blanc or riesling, and on reducing a bit, add similar quantities of cream and beef or vegetable stock.
The sauce will have come off the boil, and will be probably quite liquid. Slowly return to a simmer while stirring, and mix in a few tablespoons of cornflour so the sauce thickens. This should take about 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Serve onto freshly drained pasta, and garnish with chopped parsley. Enjoy, and, if you like, with a glass of dry white wine.
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