Within the next 30 minutes, three more people said it was a bumper year for the chanterelles, and I goaded them on to tell me where to look. The lure of free booty taken easily from mother nature, and all you have to do is hunt. The hunt was on. The name chanterelle comes from the Greek cantharos , meaning cup. Often the simplest preparation is the best: sauteed in butter with chervil or flat leaf parsley and shallots.
Some northern Italian cooks add cream. Damn the heart attack, full speed ahead. For this dish, our belligerent yet talented Chef Dominique folded a round piece of parchment paper around a pile of chanterelles he had tossed in a bowl of white Bordeaux, paper thin slices of garlic, chopped thyme and parsley, and sea salt. He baked the package at degrees until the steam from the wine-soaked mushrooms bloated the air-tight bag into beautiful Hindenburg-like ball.
In front of guests, I cut the bag open with great finesse, releasing the herbal steam into their receptive faces. A drizzle of mushroom jus and brioche toast points made it a superb dish. Back on planet earth and 22 hours after deciding to hunt, I struggled up a ridge in my usual mushroom hunting grounds. They were small, beat-up and dirty, but chanterelles nonetheess, perfect on pizza with an organic duck breast. These mushrooms mimic the real one.
False chanterelles have sharp gills, thinner stems and more orange brown than the funnel-shaped real ones. Use the Easy Dough recipe for round pizza found in the right sidebar. Make it 4 hours before the bake. Preheat oven. Place a pizza stone or the upturned bottom of a heavy sheet pan in the middle rack. Chanterelles are notoriously dirty and hard to clean. Do not soak chanterelles. They act like sponges and soak up an amazing amount of water.
To clean, use a dry brush or blow on them. For really dirty ones, turn on the shower and use one or two streams to blast some dirt away fast, then dry like mad. I always eat as much of the chanterelle as possible.
