Wild Mushroom Foraging: How to tell Real Chanterelle from Fake Chanterelle

Well mushroom season is back again, finally, and we had our first outing yesterday. I'd heard from others that it was a good season already, and sure enough we weren't disappointed - sometimes we go looking and come back empty handed, but this time around I'm happy to say that we got a pretty good haul.

Boletes & Chanterelles

I've been foraging for wild mushrooms for years now, and have slowly built my skills so that I can identify mushrooms correctly. I still find it tricky to tell the difference sometimes though, I have to say, and usually find myself poring through my mushroom books once home just to make sure. Roger Phillips's "Mushrooms" (he has a website too at http://www.rogersmushrooms.com/) is my key tome, as it is for many others, but I also have several others from people like Carluccio. I actually keep the Phillips book in the back of the car with my mushroom knife - you never know when you might find something tasty!

How to Start Identifying Mushrooms

Learning how to identify mushrooms takes time above everything else, partly of course because mushrooms are seasonal, so you only have a few months in which to practice. I think there are two great pieces of advice I would pass on to any budding mushroom hunter:

• First, get to know the major poisonous mushrooms before you know any others. There are actually quite a small group of common dangerous mushrooms, e.g. Death Cap, Panther Cap, Destroying Angel. Once you get your eye in and know what to look for it's relatively simple to spot them, and you can then be comfortable that you're protected from at least those deadly mushrooms that really will kill you.
  
• Second, pick a small group (i.e. genera) of mushrooms and focus on that, so you can comfortably identity mushrooms within just that group. Once you start learning more about mushrooms you soon realise that there are many, many different structures within them that set them apart from each other, so mushrooms that previously seemed exactly alike will suddenly be quite obviously different. You learn that even things like size can be quite specific, sometimes it's possible to rule out a certain species based on size alone.

Identifying Real Chanterelle versus Fake Chanterelle

When it comes to identifying mushrooms, one thing that has taken me years to feel truly confident about is telling the fake chanterelle (Hygrophoropsis Aurantiaca) from the real chanterelle (Cantharellus Cibarius). Many books and websites will tell you that it's quite easy to tell the difference between these two, but that's not been the case in my experience, so I thought I'd share here what I know just in case others have been equally as frustrated.

Chanterelle (or Girolle as they're also sometimes known) are of course one of the very best edible mushrooms - the Italian would probably say they are the best I reckon - and we're lucky enough to know a few local patches where they grow. Mushrooms of course grow in the same spot year in year out, provided you don't damage the underground root structures (i.e. mycelium) when harvesting, so once you've found a good spot it's worth keeping it under your hat! Trouble is fake chanterelles very often grow in the same locality, so chances are you'll probably encounter both.

I've read books that say you can identify which is which by colour, but they often seem very very similar. Others say you can by smell, but whilst true chanterelles smell of apricots, I've often found fake chanterelles can smell a bit fruity too. In blind tests I've always been able to spot one from the other if I have both, but given a single species I'm not so sure I could tell by smell alone. Another point of difference seems to be that the fake has a hollow stem, but the trouble is you could possibly find a true chanterelle with enough maggot damage (the mushroom hunters nemesis!) to confuse I reckon.

For me there is one absolutely unmistakeable difference between the true chanterelle and the fake chanterelle - the gills. A true chanterelle has primitive gills, a fake chanterelle has true gills.

Now the trouble with that statement of course, at least the trouble if you're not familiar with mushroom structure, is that the chanterelle is not a fish. Gills, from a mushrooms point of view, are what runs from the stem to the rim under the cap of the mushroom. On your normal supermarket mushroom they're usually white.

I'm not going to go on at length about them here, as this is actually a really complex subject, but it's hopefully enough to say that the diversity and structure of the gills is an absolutely key part of identifying mushrooms. Some mushrooms don't even have gills, but have other structures in their place. The wonderful hedgehog mushroom (which is delicious by the way) has spines for example, not gills at all, making it almost impossible to misidentify, as mushrooms which have spines are a very small group.

Chanterelles are unusual in that they have primitive gills, and that's exactly what it sounds like. Normal mushroom gills are thin and papery, well formed and uniform. Primitive gills are more like ridges on the surface of the mushroom underbody, they tend to be more haphazard and are an extension of the underbody itself, rather than a thin sheet of material protruding from it.

But enough words from me, I'm going to let my pictures finish this post. Below are a number of shots I took of two mushrooms, the first on the left is a true chanterelle that's destined for risotto. The second mushroom on the right is a fake chanterelle that's destined for the recycling bin. Hopefully the difference between their two gill structures is clear!

Update, August 2018

Just back from a lovely walk through the woods as the season slowly shifts from Summer to Autumn, and it looks like it's amazing season for one of these two - but unfortunately it's the false chanterelle! They absolutely carpet the ground in some spots, and to the casual eye look very much like chanterelles, but on closer inspection it's obvious they're not. I picked one particularly good specimen and shot a video back home which hopefully adds a little more detail about this gills business, check it out below, as well as a few more pictures.

Roast Chicken with a Wild Mushroom 'stuffing'

Been a while since I posted anything up here - the blasted seasonal flu has struck our house, though not I think the pig variety thankfully - but was back up and running last weekend. And it's mushroom season again, yippee!

I started trying to understand wild mushrooms better a few years ago now, and have been slowly building my knowledge every season till I've now got to the point where I'm pretty confident in the field. There are several edible species which I'm very comfortable with and I know all the common deadly ones easily enough. Last Saturday we were up in one of our usual places and sure enough we found lots of dangerous ones, including Death Cap and Panther Cap, some of the most poisonous of the Amanita family. They certainly don't call it Death Cap for nothing.

Panther Cap just emerging - nasty bleeder

We also found a couple of small hedgehog mushrooms, which I've dried for future stews and soups, and luckily a load of Jersey Cow boletes on an old pine trunk that had been rotting away for some time. I say they're Jersey Cow now (and I'm sure they are) but they took some pondering I can tell you! There was one critical clue that gave them away (often the case with mushroom hunting) but more of that later.

Jersey Cow Boletes

Hedgehog Mushrooms

The Hedgehog is probably one of the easiest to identify, very tasty and often prolific, so is a great find. We know a few spots (mushrooms always tend to return year on year to the same place, provided you harvest them correctly) so we generally know we'll get something, but nonetheless it's always great so see them. They're unusual in that they have spines instead of the gills or pores of other mushrooms, and there are very few mushrooms that have spines, so you can be pretty confident what you've got.

But back to the Jersey Cow's. These were a real mystery for a bit, and although I keep a copy of the mushroom book in the car ("Mushrooms" by Roger Phillips) we still weren't sure. Back home I consulted a few more books (well you can't have too many foodie books in my opinion) and there was one thing that stood out which suddenly made everything clear - compound pores. I won't go into too much detail, mushrooming is not something you can cover in a paragraph after all, but suffice it to say that the pores on these mushrooms were not singular but made up of one big pore with lots of smaller ones inside. Unusual, and given all the other characteristics of the mushrooms that made a conclusive identification.

More pics of the mushrooms and identification:
http://picasaweb.google.com/r.m.osborne/JerseyCowBoletesPantherCap?authkey=Gv1sRgCJerkcngjsS-wQE

So, next question, what to do with them ...

We were headed to Ottery St Mary after lunch at a local pub, which is a typical Devon town a few miles away, and I knew it had a couple of good butchers so was quietly confident. I had in my mind a sort of braise with quail, partridge or something similar, the mushrooms chopped up into a sort of stuffing, but the only game on sale was overpriced in my opinion (the London lot can distort things a little) so I settled for a chicken instead. But that meant I had to be a bit more inventive for the stuffing, as putting it inside the bird would take too long to cook - so I decided to try a variation on the 'butter under the skin' trick I've been doing a fair bit of lately. First I made a classic duxelles, which is basically just mushrooms, onions & herbs chopped up and cooked together, and then left it to cool.

Duxelles Mixture with Thyme

I then added some butter to this mixture to thicken it and some small cubes of fresh mozzarella, which I hoped would melt in the oven sealing it together. This was then pushed under the skin of the chicken until it formed a thick layer above the breast. I was hoping that by doing this I would keep the meat moist, flavour it somewhat with the stuffing, and end up with a breast I could take of and slice through with two layers.

Chicken stuffed and ready for the oven. Note the cocktail stick - tore the skin a little, so needed to keep the end together!

This went into an oven at 180ºC for about 15 minutes per pound stuffed weight, which is what suits my fan oven, and then rested for about 20 minutes whilst I made a sauce in the roasting tray with a little white wine and some stock.

The chicken just out of the oven, ready to rest.

It actually came out really well, better than I expected, and it was a real pleasure to use freshly gathered wild mushrooms in a dish like this. The layering thing kind of worked, although I probably needed to use more stuffing if I'm honest.

Chicken breast on the plate

I served it with a simple baked potato (odd for a Sunday Roast maybe - but then again why not?), dressed with creme fraiche and chopped fresh chives from the garden.

The finished dish

I think there's a fair bit more experimentation to be done with 'under the skin' type stuffings, so will certainly be trying some other ideas out soon. Would love to hear if anyone else has been experimenting with this sort of thing, and what advice they can offer. Meanwhile it's back to the woods for me, in the hope for more fungi.

Slow Roast Lamb with Wild Garlic & Red Onion

Finlly, it's back - the wild garlic is here again!

We love a bit of wild garlic, and there's something quite special about the fact that it's abundant once more, something to do with Spring being around the corner, promises of being back in the garden again, salads, warm walks in the sunshine, and even swimming in the river. Much as I love the Winter, whether cosy around the wood burner or playing in the snow, I always get restless towards the end of any season, eager for the next one to start and with it a whole new set of experiences ready and waiting.

And what better to go with wild garlic than lamb. Moretonhampstead had a big foodie festival on Friday (the 7th), and amongst all the things we picked up was a very well hung shoulder of lamb. I do prefer shoulder over leg, but then I like my lamb well done on the whole and think shoulder works much better like this because of the added fat that keeps it moist. I do like rare lamb now and again, but if I'm going to do that then I almost always go for a rack instead of a leg.

We didn't know whether we'd get any wild garlic, as last time we checked two weeks ago there was none, but we popped down to one of our favourite spots and sure enough there was loads of the stuff coming up all over the place. It really is the most profilic free veg you can think of, and it's not as if you need much of it so it'll stretch for many a meal. If you're not sure where to find it then you need to be looking out around stream banks and other wet places.


A close up of wild garlic next to the waters edge. It's the big broad leaves, and has an unmistakeable aroma of garlic, very strong.



A wider shot just up from the water. This is very early in the season but you can already see just how prolific it is. Later on there will be flowers as well, nice to sprinkle into salads.


I love a lamb shoulder roasted very slowly, and for this one (5lb joint) I did it very simply, sliced up two red onions quite thickly and placed into a large roaster, seasoned and then two big handfuls of wild garlic leaves - no need to cut them at all (but the Italian will insist that I wash them :-) and then the lamb shoulder (on the bone as ever) on top of that, with a bit more seasoning. The idea is that the onion and garlic is mostly covered by the lamb to stop them burning, and in return they'll flavour the meat from the underside and cook down and become a sort of sauce for the meat. Then in a normal oven at 150°C for about four hours. At least that's the idea ...


Ingredients all ready to go.



Wild Garlic & Red Onion ready for the meat to go on top


... I did add a glass of white wine after an hour or two to keep it moist but then had to go and teach online for a while, and by the time I got back the onion and garlic had cooked a bit more than I had hoped so we only managed to salvage about a third of it for the meal, but it was exceptionally tasty. And the lamb? Lovely flavour, incredibly tasty, and the skin was so light and crispy, kind of like fresh lamb crisps. I think the best comparison is with crispy fried duck, as you get the same sort of tender meat and crispy skin. Next time I really must pack it into a smaller roaster so that there's less chance of over cooking the onion/garlic, and maybe add a bit more liquid too neat the end of cooking.

Needless to say we've now got bags of leftover meat to play with plus loads of lamb stock from the bones. I think I might take that whole crispy duck idea a bit further - I feel some pancakes coming on ...