Porcini e Tomini in Pasta Sfoglia

Boletus Edulis/Porcini Moro

The long winter with it's abundance of snow has replenished our somewhat depleted water table making the mushroom population flourish more easily when the conditions lends itself to finding those fat darlings we affectionately call porcini around these parts. The springtime is a short and sweet season, for the most part, usually consisting of what are referred to as the bianci and not the more prized moro. or roughly translated as black, which to my eye seems more in the red color, but it makes sense overall. As I frequently gas on about how my in laws are keen mushroom hunters, they didn't disappoint this spring either. The little basket above is one of their small daily finds a couple of weeks ago and so a few assorted dishes came together. Porcini risotto is a standard favorite in our house, and of course with an number of simple pastas dishes, which of course fresh made pasta always gets my vote hands down. One of my other favorite "easy does it" standards, is a mushroom and cheese strudel. Use your favorite puff pastry, hand made or store bought and get on with it. It comes together quickly and is sure to impress no matter who is lucky enough to enjoy it with you.

Porcino and Cheese Strudel

Ingredients

puff pastry sheet, (250g or 7-8 oz sheet) home made or store bought
you want a rectangular sheet about 9"x12"1/2cm(1/4") thick

250g -300g (8 0z) porcini, fresh, cleaned, thick sliced and cut into chunky bits
or
8 oz fresh crimini or white mushrooms, sliced
10-15g dry porcini, rehydrated in warm water for a 5-10 minutes
20g (2T) onion, red, white or shallots
1 garlic clove, minced
30g (2 T) butter or a 50/50 mix of olive oil and butter
1 T/sprig or two of fresh thyme, chopped. I like some of the lemon and plain thyme mixed
1 bay leaf broken to release the flavor
5g (2T) parsley, chopped
50-60ml (1/4c) white wine

100g Tomini cheese or soft cheese, ricotta or mascarpone would work also

egg wash (whole egg and a few drops of water whisked together/ or straight whites and water)

Method
Preheat your oven to 190*C/375*

Saute’ the mushrooms, onion, and garlic till soft, about 5 minutes.
Add the herbs and continue to cook another 5 minutes or so.
Before the mixture picks up much color, deglaze the pan with our white wine.
Continue cooking till all the alcohol has evaporated and only pan juices remain.
Use a bit more oil or stock or water if you need a bit more moisture. You do want a fairly dry mixture.
Cool the mix.
Cut your cheese up into 1/4" slices or chunks
Add to the mushrooms when they have cooled down a bit
If using ricotta or mascarpone, you will smear this on the bottom of your sheet of pastry.

Lay your pastry out flat on your sheet tray that has been oiled or on top of a sheet of baking paper, which is my preference.
Fold your pastry length wise in half.
Cut 1/2" wide strips 1/2 of the way to the edge, starting 1 1/2"-2" from the top and bottom.
Carefully open your pastry and lay flat again.
Spread your soft cheese on one side of the uncut pastry, leaving a 1/4 inch empty edge.
Cover with your mushroom and cheese mixture.
Brush the edge with your egg wash.
Bring the pastry over the top and seal by pressing the edges together with a fork or
Work your way around the three cut edges, curling the bottom and top dough together pressing the dough back in on itself, making sure the bottom dough stretches up and over the top dough, making a nice decorative edge and seal.
Brush your whole pastry with your egg wash making sure not to clog your slits so the steam will escape and all will bake and keep it's shape.
Bake in a hot oven for around 30 minutes or until the pastry is cooked on the bottom and the top is crisp and brown.
Cool a few minutes before cutting into wedges.
If you are feeling flush you can even serve it on a bed of sauteed mushrooms

Cooks notes
A couple of puff pastry recipes if you want to make your own.
Easy short cut puff pastry recipe by Gordon Ramsey, here in grams or more traditional variety here in a puff pastry video demo, by Ms Glaze's Pommes d'Amour

Stalking the Black and White Truffles of Asti

Actually it's more like stalking the elusive Internet, which one expects it to be there when you want it. In other words I'm happy to be back on line after 5 long days of frustratingly being off line. Although I do have to say that it did allow me permission to get my little neglected garden patches tended before the unusual early cold weather set in. There's snow on the peaks at the moment, that is further down than all of last year. Perhaps those predictions of a hard winter that my father in law keeps mentioning the signs of, might come to fruition. Stay tuned on that account, as they also say that when it comes this early, then it won't be much of a season. And so it goes with the predictions of the weather and whether or not it'll be a good mushroom season, ski season or fill in the blank. Discussing the weather; humankind's favorite past time down through the ages.
Whenever you start making arrangements 8 months ahead with guests for an annual event that is reliant on Mother Nature being cooperative, you can be sure you will not be able to predict how it will all turn out. So when some of our last guests told me how they were coming because they not only had a great passion for good food and wine, but a particular passion for porcini and truffles and were planning their trip around, I had a bit of a crossed fingers reaction. We are known for our porcini mushrooms here in our neighborhood, truffles are found out on the hilly vineyard area about an hour from us. I wanted their and all of our guests holiday to live up to their hopes and expectations, especially when people come from halfway around the world for mushrooms, white Christmas, sunny summers and food that knocks your socks off. So it was a bit alarming when our season wasn't panning out to be the banner season that it usually is.
So after all these months of corresponding, they have finally arrived and I start back peddling on expectations, telling them how it isn't a stellar year, but we'll find mushrooms and truffles no matter what, and on and on.Do try to imagine my surprise when they came back from a little stroll before dinner having only arrived less than an hour before and Jamie was carrying a plump ole Porcino that made her day, well actually, it made all of our day, to have such an auspicious beginning to their visit. So I started to breath a bit easier. When it came round to the weekend, Fabrizio called up his friend who is the president of the Truffle association of the Asti region to find out where to have luck with trying to purchase truffles. He recommended the festival in Montiglio, a hilltop town in the Asti region, as an alternative to the more famous festival of Alba. Alba is a bigger, sophisticated town and well known for their month long truffle festival every weekend in October, as well as the home of Ferrero Rocher of chocolate and Nutella fame. We knew we would be fighting the crowds and the prices would be steep. So off we went on a warm foggy Sunday for a small town festival that had something for everybody. It is not possible to just head off in the woods to search for Truffles, like here where the hordes descend like locusts at times. No, you can't just set out and search for truffles with your pet pig and dig up everything in sight. Oh no, you have to be licensed and only select licensed hunters are able to deal in the much prized treasure. All the vendors we saw that day had certificates. Upon arriving the seasonal fog burned off to give us a beautiful sunny day. It really was an excellent choice. Rest assured we were not alone in our quest for truffles. There was a steady stream of people out for a Sunday outing that didn't disappoint. The town was hopping with a couple of buses and a makeshift parking lot filling up fast. There were all sorts of vendors in the main piazza selling cheeses, wine, bread, juice, salami with truffle, books, jewelry and decoupaged nic nacs for the interested. They even had an antique car show with some great old Fiats too. Further past the main avenue of the truffle market in the center of town, the vendors making baskets and brooms, and all sorts of handicrafts snaked through the winding streets till you reached the top of the village where the Pro Loco were dishing up some mighty fine fare and the smell was intoxicating. Carne crudo topped with black truffle, cannellini beans and truffle, Tomini cheese topped with, you got it, truffle. The smell at times could almost be overwhelming, but we managed to hang in there and sample our fair share.It didn't take us long to find the truffle spreads and dips and finally the vendors of the very lusted after, truffle. The people were very friendly and everyone was having quite a good time. When Jamie finally found the truffle of her dreams, well, at least of her budget the woman was so taken with her that she not only added in a free black truffle to keep the white one company, but she even gave her a book about the town of Montiglio. It was a great outing, but it wasn't over yet.









In part two I'll tell you about the rest of the day, where we carried on for a bit of wine tasting before heading home to prepare our indulgence of truffles and porcini.

Slow Food's "Salon del Gusto" Has Come and Conquered until 2008

And a good time was had by all!

Well..., that is after you actually got into the Slow Food Salon and the fun began. I would say it was well organized considering the enormity of the event and sheer numbers of presenters, vendors, producers and the scores of attendees. There were a few things they could improve on. It was a mass throng at the entrance with cash and card users mixed together, slowing down the process to a painful crawl. Major mistake to remember for the next edition,
Buy your tickets before hand,
on line, and don't wait in line to get in!

Then, of course, there were the masses of people. I found it difficult to get many shots of the products and such for the crowded booths. I also found it difficult to actually get to really check out the products as I found that I wanted to explore it all and that was a daunting task. Insight for next time. Perhaps skip the lunchtime afternoon crowds in favor of the late afternoon and evening lull. Or, take a couple of days to try and absorb it all. I found I was just trying to get my head around all the categories and what they all were actually trying to accomplish as well as elbow my way through. And this is from me that has been hovering around and checking out Slow Food for a number of years.

Our friends the Bernard family, had their family's mountain elixirs on display and sale again this year and seemed to be a rousing success. They took home another Maestro Del Gusto (Master of Taste) award this year. We have been trying to not only help them push up their exposure from loyal genepy consumers from our guests, but have been trying to find a distributor/exporter for their sending their products abroad, so that some of their already loyal consumers can receive it more easily. The Bernard family have been producing liquors/elixirs and infusions for over 100 years in a historical valley where there isn't a lot of work. The small business not only supports their family, but they employs local mountian people to caretake and raise many of the herbs and flowers, bringing in much needed money to the high valleys and helps to preserve the land and mountain culture.

We stopped by with my nephew and neice to sample the wares as they took a break from the Terre Madre symposium. Jeremy is a professioanal baker from Vermont and we were both struck by the lack of representation of bread at this massive event. Bread is such a fact of life as in the staff of life for Italians at any meal that I was quite taken aback by the lack of bread. Perhaps artisan bread is such a phenomena in America because it holds a different place in the meal. Pride of place in an American meal features warm bread usually as a filler until the meal comes. Whereas in Italy bread is a plate cleaner and imprtant, but different viewpoint, perhaps.
There were no shortages of cookies and tortes, or Italian specialties like chocolate and Torrone. So I found myself satisfied to explore those avenues.
I especially liked the hazelnut honey and butter.
It was great to see pasta being made and the enormous squash transformed into sculptured art. I, of course, took way too many cheese photos and the obligatory mushrooms as well. The tower of porcini in the picture are from a small factory in the Cuneo province a few valleys over. All the mushrooms are wild and hand picked. We are going to go over and have a look at their production some time as they were so friendly and proud of their operation and I am a lover of all things mushroom as well. The white and black truffles were from Alba, world known for it's truffle festival and auction.

Porcini Pin up of the Day

And the hunt continues! The steady stream of cars continue to whizz past Bella Baita before dawn and everywhere you go the local osterias are selling "Nostrani Funghi "
(our local mushrooms, assumed Porcini as none other get to be called funghi in local legend)Ok so now hopefully I have set the record straight by replacing the capre photo with a proper procini photo. Mea culpa!

The Hills Are Alive with the Sound Of Mushroom Hunters!

Tis the season for the passion of Porcinis to overtake Italians and send them running to the hills at the crack of dawn in search of the King Boletus Edulis and any other mushroom they can get their hands on and a few they shouldn't. It's the power of the Porcini. The hills are swarmed with funghi hunters swarming like bees looking for a new hive! Last year after a 2 year drought I was awakend one Sunday morning befire it was light and before 6 am by the sound of vehicle after vehicle racing up the hill in the fog to stalk the wild porcini. I fell back to sleep after 37 cars in less than an hour.

This year it's a bit calmer, but only just. Our neighbor counted 100 cars on the road the other morning before lunch and every one disperses for a bit of food and drink, leaving only the most determined alone to carry on the hunt.
But Honestly you're not really considered a seasoned(or respected) hunter unless you get the white and black Porcini. All others finds pale in bragging rights!

The fine examples above were found yesterday by Fabrizio's mother Egle, who has the "eagle"(Egle) eye for finding mushrooms when others have given up. Well I must be off to cook up some mushrooms for later use. Let's see shall it be breaded fried steaks, risotto, or big fat egg noodles with thick slices of porcini?.........humm.....