was able to get a nic ebunch of chantrals yesterday. tasted good with some of last years elk. how do you guys fix em up to eat and for storage?

I eat some fresh ones (buffalo burger gravy over biscuits) , sauté some lightly in margarine not until fully cooked (kinda blanched) put in vacum bags in freezer till the liquid sets up then vacum seal, we also dehydrate some and store in jars for soup and stews the following year. I used to have a spot that I would go to you could sit down and fill up a grocery bag a friend and I used it for years its now being turned into a large housing development

Thanks for the idea. I went out and got a plastic grocery bag full in about a half hour!
Time to look up the mushroom soup recipe!!!!

A couple falls ago a fellow worker gave me what he called a "sheepshead". It was about the size of a basketball. He gave me some suggestions for cooking and told me it would keep in the 'fridge for a week. First recipe I tried was frying in olive oil and garlic. Excellent. Second recipe was breading after dipping in egg and water w/ "frying magic" and again frying in olive oil. Excellent. Had to give some to my mother along w/ my successfull IMO recipes. Long story short, the mushroom the size of a basketball was consumed in a week, never had to worry about how to preserve.

An aside: the following spring, my interest piqued for mushrooms, I found some morels at the end of my driveway, of all places. I spent the next several evenings after work hiking and searching for more in the agricultural area I live. Never found one.

I don't need to know the specific area, but where are you guys getting these mushrooms?

This is something that I always wanting to do.
I got two books about wild mushroom in route.

I was exciting when I got my first oyster mushroom batch last week down the Nisqually.
I swore they were edibles but was scared as hell about them. So I took some to give to a friend who has a friend who know a few things about wild mushrooms. She gave me the OK so I ate some. The freaky part was that I came down with the fleu a few days before I ate those mushrooms and just right after I ate those mushrooms, my fleu sympthoms got real bad. I was very confused and became really paranoid not knowing if my illness was just the fleu or the mushrooms.

If you are looking for chantrels they will be in
second groth timber around and above 1000ft
elevation. But they are not the only ones out
right now!! There is Chicken of the woods!!,
Coral,Shaggymanes that is just a few of many edible ones.Yesterday while on a hike I found a patch of shaggys that I filled a 5 gallon
garbage bag full!! UUUUUMMMM GOOOOOD!!!

Iron Head:

I have picked chanterelles in Wallace Falls State Park off Highway 2. We also went to the Sultan Basin area and got quite a few.

Best ever is North Fork of the Clearwater in Idaho at this time of the year. Two buddies and I stopped fishing for cutthroat for an hour and found about 20 pounds of chanterelles. There is no better meal than these mushrooms fried up with red wine and served over steak or porkchops.

Good luck.

The masutaki are showing in the Buck Creek area, off hwy 410 out of Enumclaw.
If available, would you please post a picture of a chantrell mushroom. Just curious what they look like and would never eat one, without finding one with someone EXPERIENCED and KNOWLEDGABLE about them.
Thanks in advance, Sky Soldier

A silver linning in all this rain we have been having!1

Early mushrooms - yummm.

Use to find lots of chantrels in the rolling hills of Mason County, also found then in the foothills of the Cascade (King to Whatcom County) though never in the kinds of densities I found in Mason County. I have had the best luck in stands of 30 to 60 year old Doug Fir - somewhat open understore with moss on the ground. For those new to the sport of mushroom hunting please be careful in what you are picking and eating. The best is to find a kind soul that will take you under their wing to show you those that are safe and those to avoid.

Tight lines
S malma

I found my Chantrelles uphill from Duval in a spot a buddy showed me. It was in fact about 1400 ft. in elev. and on a north facing slope in second growth. The best thing about the early rain is you can find them much easier right now. Usually it's in Oct. when there are yellow leaves on the ground....tough looking then. You can see a lot more right now because the leaves haven't dropped yet.
If you haven't been make sure you bring a knife to cut them off...I've been told they grow back that way. Not sure if it's true but I do it anyway.

liberty cap tea???? did you hear that?? there it goes again!!! dude, what is that?? did you know....what was i talking about??

OK so here's two ways to deal with you catch.


6 TBS butter
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 lb fresh mushrooms, finely chopped
3 tablespoons flour
3 cups beef stock
1 bay leaf
1/8 tsp freshly ground pepper
3/4 cup half and half

1. Melt the butter in heavy pan. Add onions & stir over moderate heat until
onions transparent. Add mushrooms & cook, stirring, 4 more minutes.

2. Remove mixture from heat and blend in flour. Add stock slowly, stirring
constantly. Add bay leaf and pepper.

3. Bring mixture to a boil, reduce heat, simmer 5 minutes. Remove bay leaf
and stir in the cream. If desired, garnish with croutons before serving.

**********************************

But here's another recipie which looks a lot better, calls for more
mushrooms, makes more soup. It uses a few ounces of dried wild mushrooms
and a few pounds of store-bought mushrooms, but if you modify it for what
you have I think it'll be great.

"Wild Mushroom Soup"

2 ounces dried wild mushrooms
3/4 cup Madeira wine
1 stick sweet butter
2 cups finely chopped yellow onions
2 pounds fresh mushrooms
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 cups chicken stock
1 pint heavy cream (optional)

1. Rinse the dried mushrooms well in a sieve under cold running water and
soak them in the Madeira for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

2. Melt the butter in a soup pot. Add the onions and cook, covered, over
low heat until they are tender and lightly colored, about 15 minutes,
stirring occasionally.

3. Trim stems from the fresh mushrooms and save for another use. [I
wouldn't do this with the chantrelles.] Wipe caps with a damp cloth and
slice thin. Add caps to the soup pot, season to taste with salt and pepper,
and cook over low heat, stirring frequently, for 15 minutes.

4. Lift mushrooms from bowl with a slotted spoon and transfer to soup pot.
Let Madeira settle a moment and then pour carefully into soup pot, leaving
sediment behind.

5. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. REduce heat, cover, and
simmer for 45 minutes, or until dried mushrooms are very tender.

6. STrain the soup and transfer the solids to the bowl of a food processor
fitted with a steel blade. Add 1 cup of the liquid and puree until very
smoth.

7. Return puree to the soup pot along with remaining liquid and set over
medium heat. Taste, correct seasoning, and thin the soup slightly with
heavy cream if it seems too thick. Heat until steaming and serve
immediately.

*****

Thanks for the information.
If you have some time, could you please post some pics of important mushrooms?

I got two books coming:
Mushrooms Demystified: A Comprehensive Guide to the Fleshy Fungi

All That the Rain Promises, and More ...: A Hip Pocket Guide to Western Mushrooms

Are these books any good?

IH...I have both...best books available on NW mushrooms! Goo hunting.

If you want pictures go to google.com and search images for "chanterelles." Lots of good pictures.

Friday I had some sauted Chantrelles with some deer steaks. Damn that was good. My friendly picker is up right now. I love them wild ones. You know how much they are in the store? Had to grow into the taste. When we would go hunting my dad would be looking for mushrooms. Set his gun against a tree once & forgot where it was. He eventually found it.

I love chantrelles--one of the best things about Fall in my mind! I like to dry saute chantrelles before making anything with them--just heat up a skillet to high, throw in the cleaned, chopped mushrooms and salt them down a bit to draw out the moisture. Stir them around for 5-10 minutes until the moisture is gone, being careful not to burn them, and then I'll turn down the heat to medium and add some butter and cook them for a few minutes longer. It kinda concentrates the flavor. From there you can freeze em, cream of mushroom soup or whatever. Awesome!

I second what smalma said it is best to find someone that is experienced to go with. You can learn a lot by reading but it is real easy to make a mistake lot's of look a like mushrooms.Some county's have mycology society's you can go to their meetings and usually find someone willing to get you started heres a link for the Puget Sound Mycological Society.

http://www.psms.org/

Here are a few pics from a couple weeks ago while bear hunting.

Chanterelles



Chicken


Dinner

From National Audubon Society's, "Field Guide to Mushrooms":

"Chanterelle Family (Cantharellaceae)
The Chanterelle family includes some of our best known edible wild mushrooms, such as the spicy Chanterelle of open oak woods and western conifer forests, and the fragrant Black Trumpet of eastern beech woods. There are 4 genera in the family: Cantharellus, Craterellus, Gomphus, and Polyozellus. Most are orangish or yellow; a few are gray to brownish-black, one is white, one is blue and afew have albino colour forms. Most are either convex or vase-shaped. All lack true gills. Instead, as the mushroom develops, it produces spores on ridges, folds, or on a nearly smooth surface. Most chanterelles grow on the ground; they are found in Summer in the east, and in fall and winter in the west. Only a few mushrooms in this family, such as Scaley Vase Chanterelle, are known to cause some discomfort on being eaten. However, poisonings occur through misidentification, such as when the toxic JackO'Lantern is mistaken for the delectable Chanterelle."