IDEAS ON WHAT TO DO WITH MOREL MUSHROOMS (from the Professional Chefs' Mailing List) From: Carron Harris I just used morels tonight in my place tossed with penne pasta, porcini stock, fresh tarragon and butter. It sold! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: CAVETOCAVE@aol.com Anyone who has dealt with quantities of morels will find that breakage will create a quantity of little bits of the broken fruiting body. This can be cleaned just before use by placing in a pan of water to get out any pine needles etc. I love to use these bits as an addition to alia olia (sp?) when I add the garlic. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: Andy Pforzheimer Brook trout stuffed with morels and thyme, poached in Riesling. Sauce of poaching liquid, caramelized shallots, touch of ginger, butter. Serve with yellow fingerling potatoes, baked dry, split and filled with a soft chevre. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: Steve Holzinger What beautiful recipes for morels this group is providing. It is a joy to be a member. Let's do this a lot more, chef to chef! I'm saving these recipes. They may well end up in the old egg salad, if there are enough! Here is my 2 cents. Filet de Beouf aux Morilles. (after Escoffier) Trim an eight pound fillet of beef of all fat, chain and silverflesh and suppress the tail portion for another use. You should have 4 lb. clean. Tie it gently, to keep a uniform shape, but not tight. Prepare a marinade of olive oil, red wine vinegar, a decent domestic cabernet sauvignon. with good body, chopped shallots, cracked black pepper and a splash of a good brandy. (NO salt) Rest 24 hours in refrigerator in marinade, turning at least once. Sear outside on a very hot broiler to make grill marks. Set oven at 400 F preheat 15 min. Lightly oil a black roast pan and place in oven. Let it get good and hot. Put fillet in pan, top down. 15 Min later turn it over quickly. Don't be sticking it with a fork. Give it another 15 min. and out of the oven. Let rest (reposer) 15 min. Deglaze the roast pan with 1 cup cabernet sauvignon. Meanwhile, soften 6 oz shallots in 4 oz sweet butter, Flame with 1 cup Jack Daniels. Add 1 cup of the marinade and the pan deglazing and reduce almost dry. Add 10 oz Glace d'viand and simmer to marry the flavor. Add a little salt as required, but be gentle. Now place the fillet on a tray on the oven door (oven still on). Paint it with the sauce several times to create a glaze of sauce on the meat, which should remain rare. Saute' very quickly and very hot 1 lb of morels in clarified butter. Remember, you are sauteing little bags of water, so very hot and very. quickly. Do not add them till the yellow color of the clarified butter disappears. Pour off any excess clarified butter as soon as you have good color on the morels. Flame with 8 oz of Jack Daniels. Add 4 oz of sweet butter in lumps, and swirl into the Glace. Add a teaspoon, no more, of fresh tarragon leaves, just enough to give a herbaceous aroma to the sauce. To serve, place a little sauce in the plate and rotate to fill the well. Place a slice of well browned buttery puff paste in the center of the plate. Slice the beef and lay out 3 slices of beef on the tranche of puff paste in the form of a crown. . (The puff paste is to absorb the blood and the sauce, so one can neatly clean the plate, and not miss anything.) Put a generous spoonful of the morels on either side. Add tiny pan roasted potatoes and pan roasted baby carrots and thin asparagus tips, very green and crisp, en bouquet, in an artistic frame around the meat. Put a thin ribbon of sauce and 1 or two choice morels on top of the meat (but don't hide the meat). Serve your best cabernet sauvignon. with this. Serves a party of eight. This can be flamed and carved at table side. This is what I believe Roy Andres de Groot would call "La cuisine ancien-nouvelle," the old new cooking style. or: make scrambled eggs with morels. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= From: Gary Holleman ....or, a simple saute with morels, fiddlehead ferns, and chives. All of which peek through the ground at about the same time here in the tundra of Northern Minnesota.