Chanterelles – Fungi Gold

Chanterelles have long been one of our favourite mushrooms to forage for and eat, so when Dave Stephenson asked to write a guest post on the subject for A Cook Not Mad, we just couldn’t resist. 

Chanterelles

Wild mushrooms are a delicious feature of many dishes, and golden chanterelles (cantharellus cibarius) – with their striking bright colour – are one of the most easily spotted. Chanterelles can be found all year round in forested areas in different parts of the world. In the USA they thrive from June to September, with the peak season being in the fall.

 Yellow Chanterelles in Québec

Appearance

Also known as ‘egg mushroom’, chanterelles are shaped like a golden trumpet with fluted edges. They have a fleshy cap and margins that are rounded and wavy, reducing in thickness towards the stem. The widely spaced ridges at the cap edge are interconnected and have blunt ends. The bright yellow colour is paired with an aroma reminiscent of peaches or apricots. Although golden chanterelles are very distinctive, it’s important that a knowledgeable person verifies any mushrooms collected in the wild, as the jack-o-lantern mushroom has a similar structure and colour and will cause an upset stomach if consumed.

Chanterelles come in other colours besides gold, including off-white (cantharellus subalbidus). There is also a smaller, similar mushroom that is black (craterellus cornucopioides), which is also delicious. When buying golden chanterelles make sure the smell is fresh, and check there are no dark, slimy decaying parts.

In the Pacific Northwest, the season is from September to December, they grow beneath conifers, so they won’t be found growing near outdoor furniture in your backyard. Attempts to domestically cultivate golden chanterelles have never succeeded, and they remain the golden prize among wild fungi.

Picking and storing chanterelles

With a gentle twist and a pull at the bottom of the stem, most chanterelles can be gathered fairly easily. Care must be taken not to trample or over-pick the area, to enable them to return year after year. Store in the refrigerator in a brown paper bag, or waxed paper, until they are cleaned. Once cleaned, they will last another few days in the refrigerator.

You can store them for even longer by sautéing them quickly in butter and freezing them in Ziploc bags.

Cooking with chanterelles

European and Asian chanterelles are usually much smaller than their American counterparts – about the size of a thumb in comparison to being as big as a fist in the eastern USA, while in the west they can be four times that size. Chanterelles can be tricky to clean, and many experts use a soft brush to dislodge dirt. They are also not at their best when eaten raw and may even upset the digestive system, so it’s better to choose recipes where they can be sautéed or baked for a main course or marinated for an appetizer, rather than dishing them up in a salad.

Recipes that show off their extraordinary flavour include pasta dishes – for example, baking chanterelles in chicken broth with onions makes a great, simple but tasty sauce for pasta. Sliced and sautéed in butter, they make a fine accompaniment to chicken, veal, pork and eggs. Mushroom biscuits and chanterelle puffs are two types of delicious, savoury party food; both are made using a simple dough mixture and then baked in the oven.

Finally, for a tempting side dish, combine chanterelles with par-boiled artichokes; add a creamy white sauce and a dusting of cheese, and oven bake for just 15 minutes.

Dave Stephenson is a dedicated internet blogger that loves to write about lifestyle and the world, covering topics including family, health, and pets, all the way through to technology, media and travel.

Photos by A Cook Not Mad