Winter Chanterelle and Vegetable Solyanka

Finally had the time to make a post. There are so many twists and turns in my life at the moment I haven't had the time plan and do food blog cooking. Here's one though. This mushroom-vegetable soup makes a nice, light summer day meal. Serve bread with it, to make it a sturdier meal. Solyanka can also contain meat or fish, so if you want to make it more filling, just add them.
 
I actually got the idea for this soup from my sister-in-law. It's originally from a magnificient book, which every Finnish food lover should have. In the book this recipe is under the name "Valamo's mushroom-vegetable solyanka". I consider the book the contemporary Finnish food bible and will be introducing recipes (twisted or not) from it. The book I am gabbing about is Ruokatorstai (in Finnish), and it nicely reflects the mixed influences on Finnish home cooking - italian, russian, french, swedish and especially lately, oriental.

This soup is of russian origin. The original recipe uses penny buns, also known as ceps, or salted milk-caps, which have been soaked to remove excess salt. As I still have winter chanterelles from my huge catch from last autumn (and new season is approaching) I decided to use them. These soups are traditinonally served with smetana but also creme fraiche will do.

Ingredients:

• 1 onion
• 1/2 dl vegetable oil
• 300gr root vegetables sliced into matchsticks (carrot, celeriac, swede etc.) I used carrot, celeriac and amandine.
• 70gr tomato purée
• 1 L vegetable stock
• 250 gr mushrooms, fresh or soaked
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 dl pickled cucumber sliced into matchsticks
• Juice from sauerkraut or vinegar
• Parsley, tarragon, chervil

1. Finely chop onion and mushrooms, cut vegetables and pickled cucumber.










2. Saute onion and vegetables in oil.











3. Add tomato purée, mix and saute for a little while more.










3. Add stock, mushroom, spices (not the herbs) and pickled cucumber. Simmer until ready.

4. Add vinegar to taste, I suggest beginning with 1 tbsp and then adding more after tasting if needed. Chop and add herbs.








5. Serve with smetana.

Part II: Can You Roll your Tongue?

Here's something I come up with for a Saturday meal. I had a piece of tongue left, and was supposed to make winter chanterelle risotto to go with it. So there am I, wondering what to do with the tongue. My last attempt, to dice it finely and shove it in the risotto wasn't too great a success. Not horribly bad but didn't do justice either to the risotto nor the tongue. So what to do, what to do?!

I grabbed the lappy and googled. Not very many recipes of that sort kicking about but I saw a picture of finely cut tongue over risotto. (Thanks!) That gave me an idea. Finely slice, add something nice over and roll? Yes, let's try that!

Tongue Rolls with Winter Chanterelle Risotto

 

This meal is best to be done in the following order:
1. Slice, cut and chop non-meat items you need for both risotto and tongue rolls. Put the mushrooms to soak. You can also put the stock to simmer for the tongue.
2. While the stock simmers, slice the tongue.
3. Prepare the rolls and put them into oven. (See recipe below)
4. Prepare the risotto. (See recipe below)
5. Take the rolls out of the oven and serve over risotto.

Tongue Rolls

• 1-2 tsp grated lemon rind
• 1-2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1-2 tbsp olive oil
• 2-3 basil leaves
• 2-3 sage leaves
• Piece of tongue from the thicker end, approx. 10 cm
• black pepper
• grated parmesan or flakes

1. Put the stock to the boil. Add 1-2 tbps lemon juice. Let it simmer until its reduced to 50% or so. Taste it occasionally, it is ready when it develops a good strong but not too pungent flavour. Thicken the sauce.
2. Grate the lemon, chop herbs finely and mix all except for parmesan. Set oven to 150C.
3. Cut the tongue into very thin (few millimetres) slices. This mix makes enough for about 15 slices.
4. Brush one side of the tongue slice with the lemon-herb mix and sprinkle some parmesan over.
5. Roll the tongue tightly, secure wih a coctail stick if needed and place in a oven proof dish.
6. Pour over the sauce, stick into oven and let heat up for about 20 mins.

Winter Chanterelle Risotto

This is a non-meat version of winter chanterelle risotto. If you rather use some other kind of mushroom, it should be as good as well. You can combine mushroom-soaking water with stock if you want more mushroomey taste to the risotto. If you dont want to use wine, just replace it with stock.

• 1,5 dl arborio rice
• 1 small onion quite finely chopped
• 7 cm piece of celery sliced
• 1 dl dry sherry or 1,5 dl white wine
• 1,5- 2 dl of dried winter chanterelles
• 1 dl grated parmesan
• 6-7dl (or so) low salt chicken stock
• butter for frying 

1. Soak mushrooms in cold water, 10-15 mins is enough. Dice and slice all veggies.
2. Fry mushrooms lightly on medium heat. Put the mushrooms aside.
3. Put stock into a kettle and bring it near boiling temperature.  
4. Saute onion and celery, add rice and let it get slightly glassy look.
5. Pour in wine and let it lightly boil while stirring. Let rice absorb wine before adding stock.
6. Add the first ladle of stock, let the rice absorb it while stirring occasionally. Do not let the risotto boil vigorously.
7. Repeat 6 until the rice is almost done (when there's still something to bite but the hard starchey quality is gone) and put in the musrooms.
9. Add stock and let the rice absorb it. Test the rice and add some more stock if it's not ready yet, let absorb.
10. Take the pan off the heat, mix parmesan in and let it melt.
11. Pile on a plate, put some tongue rolls on top and serve!

Winter Chanterelle Risotto

Oh well, my favorite musrooms and recent obsession with risotto. What else you could expect?!
This makes for 2. This risotto can be also made without bacon, just saute garlic, onion and celery together. You can use dried penny buns instead of winter chanterells, then consider using 0,5 dl chopped parsley instead of peas.

Winter Chanterelle Risotto with Bacon

• 1,5 dl arborio rice
• 1 onion quite finely chopped
• 10-15 cm piece of celery stick sliced
• 1-2 garlic glove(s), sliced
• 1 dl dry sherry or 1,5 dl white wine
• 1,5- 2 dl of dried winter chanterelles
• 150 gr fillet bacon
• 1 dl grated parmesan
• 6-7dl (or so) low salt chicken stock
• 0,5 dl peas
• butter for frying
• (olive oil)

1. Soak the mushrooms in water, 15 mins is enough. Dice and slice all the veggies.
2. Remove all the excess, visible white fat from the bacon. Cut the bacon into thin slices
3. Heat the pan to almost max-maximum heat, fry the bacon until it lightly browns.
4. Lower the heat, put in some olive oil if needed and saute the onions. Scrape bacon and mushies into a bowl and set aside.
5. Put the stock into a kettle and bring it near boiling temperature.
6. Set the pan on medium heat and melt the butter. Saute the celery and garlic. Put the rice in, mix and stir, and let it aquire a glassy appearance (1-2 mins). It should not get brown. Pour in the wine and let it lightly simmer while stirring. Let the rice absorb the wine.
7. Add the first ladle of stock, let the rice absorb it while stirring occasionally. Do not let the risotto boil vigorously.
8. Repeat 7 until the rice is almost done (when there's still something to bite but the hard starchey quality is gone) and put in the peas and bacon-musroom mixture.
9. Add stock and let the rice absorb it. Test the rice and add some more stock if it's not ready yet, let absorb.
10. Take the pan off the heat, mix in the parmesan and let it melt.
11. Pile on a plate, sprinkle parmesan over and serve!

Mushie Musings

Oh, hello, yes. I've been terribly naughty, lazy and busy and will not promise to make better. Can try though. Happy New Year anyways!

This time, I am gonna present something including mushrooms. I love walking in the woods and picking mushies. In Finland, we have what is called Every Man's Rights - you can pick berries, mushrooms and flowers everywhere - provided you're not doing that on someone's yard or otherwise restricted area. Obviously, you're not entitled to break, spoil or hurt anything. So, every autumn I spend 2 months my head buried into moss and gather mushies for the winter. I especially like winter chanterelles. The only thing I don't like that much in the process, is the mushroom cleaning. You have to wipe dirt, seeds and snails away before preparing them in any way. Cleaning is rather boring when you have a five litre pile of them stacked in front of you. I have considered getting a trained monkey to do that for me, so if you happen to have one kicking about, please feel free to send it this way. One more thing: DONT pick and eat any mushrooms that you cannot 100% identify as being suitable for food. Some mushrooms are very poisonous.

I usually dry winter chanterelles. That way they keep for a long time and are easy to use. Drying is a bit tricky if you dont have a specific gimmick designed for drying plants, berries and mushrooms. If you have a warm, dry place, the thinner mushrooms will dry on their own. The rest of us need to settle with an oven but it's a bit difficult to keep the temperature between 35 - 40 Celsius degrees. A mushroom piece is dry enough, when it snaps between your fingers when you crumble it.



Mushie soup

1 - 1,5 L cleaned and sliced fresh winter chanterelles (or chanterelles)
1 diced onion
150 gr bacon (I use the lower fat version, that goes by as fillet bacon)
250 gr unripened cheese
1-2 dL cream
1-2 tbsp dry sherry
Water
Black pepper
(Salt)
(Olive oil, stock cube)

1. Put the winter chanterelles on a frying pan on low heat. When the mushrooms start to "cry", you can slowly start adding heat. Stir occasionally. This takes a while, you can prepare the other ingredients while you wait that all of the liquid has seeped out from the mushies and vaporised. Take the mushrooms away from the pan. Mind you, the point is not to fry the mushrooms but boil them in the water that seeps out of them. Don't use too much heat!
2. Heat a frying pan. (Remove white fat from the bacon.) Fry the bacon on the pan, you should not need any extra fat for this. When the meat is brown, lower the temperature and saute onions with the meat. If the pan is too dry, you can add some olive oil.
3. Put meat, mushies and onion into a kettle and cover with water. Don't use too much water but just to cover everything nicely. Bring it to boil, and let simmer for 10 mins. Taste and add a pinch of stock cube if it requires more taste or salt.
4. Add unripened cheese and cream, bring to bubble. Check the taste if you want to add salt, pepper or any other spice you think might suite this dish. Add the sherry and serve!