Mushrooms in Cuisine

Shrimp-Free Cocktail — Serves 6 to 8

When I noticed that the aborted entoloma (Entoloma abortivum) tastes a little like shrimp, I tried cooking it in cocktail sauce, and it worked! Years later, when I had forgotten about this experiment, some friends served me mock shrimp cocktail for dinner, and I remarked how good it was. They had gotten the recipe from me!

9 cups aborted entoloma mushrooms, aborted form
2 teaspoons olive oil
1 1/2 teaspoons Vege-Sal or 3/4 teaspoon salt, or to taste
Two 25.5-ounce jars tomato sauce
2 tablespoons brown rice vinegar
3 large cloves garlic, crushed into a paste
Juice of 1 lemon
2 teaspoons freshly ground yellow mustard seeds (1 teaspoon seeds)
1 tablespoon dried dill weed, finely crumbled
1 teaspoon Tabasco sauce

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Toss the mushrooms, olive oil, and 3/4 teaspoon of the Vege-Sal together in an oiled baking dish and bake, covered, for 20 minutes.
Combine the mushrooms with the remaining ingredients in a large saucepan and bring the pot to a boil over medium heat. Reduce the heat to low, and simmer, covered, for 10 minutes.
Chill completely and serve cold with toasted whole-grain bread.

From - The Wild Vegetarian Cookbook, Harvard Common Press, Boston, 2002, ISBN 1-55832-214-0

Carlo Gislimberti's Chanterelle Sorbet

4 cups water
2 cups sugar
1 cup pureed chanterelles
1 Tbsp. lemon juice

Make a simple syrup by mixing water and sugar in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes. Let it cool. Blend syrup with chanterelles and lemon juice in a blender and then pour into an ice cream maker and mix until it thickens into sorbet.

Leon’s [ed. note: not our Leon, I presume] Hot Chanterelle "Parfait"

For the syrup:
Take equal parts sugar and water, in sufficient quantity to cover your chanterelles. In a heavy sauce pan, over medium heat, bring the water and sugar to a rolling boil. Leon recommends wearing goggles if you don't wear glasses when making the syrup: it may splatter.

For the chanterelles:
Add the chanterelles to the boiling syrup, and cook them until they are just tender. To assemble: Remove the chanterelles from the syrup and fold them into cold sour cream, like strawberries. Serve immediately for best result.

From - Forest Mushrooms, Inc., St. Joseph, MN
http://forestmushrooms.com/Web%20Folder/dessert.html

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