Working on my Morels

Another gift from my friends in West Virginia: morel mushrooms! This was especially exciting to me because 1) I love mushrooms, and 2) I have always wanted to try morels! In the grocery, dried mushrooms can be pricey, and so I hadn't had a chance to savor the flavor of the much-talked-about morel mushroom.

What I had heard, though, was that they were tasty as mushroom can be. I was told to fry them in butter to really taste the flavor of them. So, that was what I did. But first, I had to reconstitute them because they came dried. A friend recently asked me how to do this, so the timing is especially appropriate!

Even when they are all dried out, they smell mighty earthy. 

The morel also has a distinctive look to it, don't you think? 

So you soak them in water until they are basically soft and "fleshy" which took about 20 minutes. This would also depend, I suppose, on how many you had, right? 

When they are all soft, remove them with a slotted spoon and place them on paper towels 

From there you want to let them drain further, so that when you fry them you don't fry your face in the process! About 30 minutes. 

Simplicity--fried in butter! I wanted to really get a good taste for the morel so that was how I did it. No flour. No breading of any kind. Just mushroom meets melted buttery goodness. 

I served it next to some pork, and it was just divine! I loved the flavor of the morels... it was that distinct "mushroom" flavor, but with a bit more earth to it. One more thing to discuss about morels, if you have any (hehe) is that I read that they shouldn't be consumed "raw" because they can upset your stomach. So be wary of that. Next time I plan to use them in my Chicken Marsala recipe! YUM!