Mushrooms in Wine Recipe

The largest mushroom in the world is right here in Oregon, in the Mahler forest. It covers 2200 acres. Wow. That’s a big mushroom.

Now did Hansel and Gretel go to the forest to pick mushrooms or was it berries? D@mn I just know that is going to keep me up all night. Just like the question “Did Adam and Eve have navels?” as melon scratchers go that’s a honeydew.

But is Hansel and Gretel all it seems? Or is it something much more sinister? Most fairy tales are quite horrific when you get right down to the Un-Disneyfied versions, and I have read in several places over the years that the tale of Hansel and Gretel is linked to early industrial espionage. Huh? Yup a house where gingerbread is made, not a house made of gingerbread. To the gingerbread house the local bakers, having no imagination themselves; have sent the two troublesome tykes to discover the recipe for making gingerbread. Who of course are caught and imprisoned by the gingerbread maker. Who is then hunted down by the locals and burned alive. Nice, reminds me of when we were kids and played “Richard the Lionfarted”, the game consisted of locking Richard in the garden shed after throwing flaming wads of gasoline soaked newspapers in, slamming the door shut, opening it again, throwing more flaming newspaper at him and then slamming the door, we could play that game for hours (Don’t panic people, we let him out, eventually…) but if fairy tales were never nice, they weren’t meant to be. They usually are trying to tell you something, here we are told not to imprison the neighbor kids because the villagers will show up with flaming torches and pitchforks and burn you to death. Hello Freddy Kruger anyone?

For example in the original Cinderella the ugly stepsisters cut off their toes and heels in order to fit into the glass slipper, but are betrayed by their bloody festering gangrenous stumps and are swiftly decapitated. The evil step mother is forced to dance to death in iron shoes that are heated to glowing hot. They all lived happily ever after, except those who were beheaded after they cut off parts of their anatomy and those forced to dance to death in red hot iron shoes.

Fun fact of the day, Charles Perrault who also wrote down the folk tales of Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood and Puss in Boots, had a brother named Claude, who is responsible for the great classical carbuncle of the East front of the Louvre.

Back to mushrooms, here is a really simple recipe for some delicious mushrooms.

Ingredients for four purple peep eaters:

One and a half pounds of mushrooms white and cremini mixed sliced

3 tablespoons of olive oil

2-4 Cloves of garlic for all the Twilight hating peeps

2 Tablespoons of chopped parsley

One half cup of cup of dry white wine

1 Teaspoon of lemon juice

Method:

Heat the oil in a sauté pan or skillet over medium heat add the garlic and cook until it starts to crisp and turn brown then add the mushrooms and sauté until beginning to soften, add the parsley and pour in the wine. Simmer until the wine is almost completely evaporated, add the lemon juice remove from heat and serve sprinkled with extra chopped parsley.

Notes and Variations:

This is also extremely good the next day served reheated or at room temperature.

These are especially good as a brunch dish served over and omelet or scrambled eggs.

They are also good on buttered toast.

Also superb dumped into a ramekin topped with parmesan cheese and placed under a broiled till brown.

Replace the olive oil with butter, and leave out the lemon juice, this makes an excellent topping for steak.