The Morel of the Story

Just imagine! A food blogger actually writing about food!

Ever since I acquired the freeze dried Morels

I have been looking for an opportunity to incorporate them in an actual dish.  In browsing one of my recipe folders “Poultry”, I came across the following

Just to show you how (a**l) retentive I am, note the date and the source at the bottom of the page, and MFO’s chef notes at the top.  Perfect!

So, we started with Phase I of the mis en place, gathering the ingredients

including the little freeze dried treasures of the forest (with the help of the Forest Glory folks)

And then prepping the ingredients for Phase II

Clockwise from nine o’clock: 

3 Tbs of (Chamisal unoaked chardonnay) white wine; 

1 Tbs fresh lemon juice; 

1 Tbs minced fresh garlic; 

1 Tbs minced fresh flat leaf parsley (from the feeder’s garden); 

Rehydrated Morels (20 minutes in water) .

Probably with a penchant for stating the obvious, I hope any alert readers that cook follow the practice of “mise en place”, before putting heat to pan, it makes it so much easier to fabricate your dish

Okay, oil and butter in pan

Add ‘shrooms and garlic and sauté until mushrooms begin to brown (MFO comment applies: 5 minutes is way too long) remove Morels from the pan 

Add the (no salt) seasoned chicken added and brown on both sides (again, 6 minutes per side is probably too long

Remove the poultry, add the wine and lemon juice, and reduce

Re-assemble dish with reserved mushrooms, add sauce, sprinkle with parsley, and…voila!  Chicken with Mushrooms!

Chef’s notes:  It was good, and we will make this dish again, but I think with the following modifications (hey! we are not perfect all the time);

Less oil and butter in pan to begin with (too long to reduce, resulting in over cooking the garlic in pan)

Pull the mushrooms earlier, they were not “succulent”; perhaps the recipe did not consider the delicate Morels, maybe thinking more along the lines of a beefier Crimini?

Possibly use a “real” split Chicken breast and not a Purdue boneless skinless one. Might be thicker and retain more juices.

That’s kind of the Joy of Cooking, execute a recipe, think of improvements, try again.  Always a learning process

and if you get your head out of the pan for a minute, you might turn and look out the window enjoying the view

Also, if you’re home you can follow your conscience as to appropriate

DFD

And you should have no trouble embracing

NMMJ

Bon Appétit!

PS: I am not even going to mention tomorrow is the first round of the Open Championship at Carnoustie, and once again, the media has installed T as favorite.  We shall see.