For 4 people: 400 g small, firm boiling potatoes, 500 g coarse sea salt, 80 g spring onions, 2 tbsp sunflower oil, 80 g finely diced dried meat, 600 g cleaned chanterelles,1 tbsp clarified butter, salt, ground pepper, 1 tsp lemon juice, 2 tbsp parsley leaves, 2 eggs, freshly grated nutmeg, 1 tbsp chive rolls.
Preheat the oven to 200 degrees. Place washed, drained potatoes in an ovenproof pan covered with the sea salt and cook in the hot oven for about 40 minutes, turning once. Remove, cool, peel and slice.
Cut the greens of the spring onions into diagonal rings, blanch briefly in boiling salted water, rinse in cold water and drain. Cut the larger mushrooms in half. Heat the oil in a pan and fry the bacon in it, add the potato slices and fry for 1-2 minutes. Cut the white of the spring onions into fine rings and sprinkle them into the pan - be careful not to burn the onion rings!
In another, roomy pan, heat the clarified butter and fry the mushrooms in it, stirring and turning over constantly, in no time, do not steam them! Season with salt, pepper and lemon juice, add the green onion rings and the parsley.
Now add the mushrooms to the potatoes and let the eggs slide out of the shells into the pan, season with nutmeg, stir everything together and let it fry briefly. Sprinkle with the chive rolls and serve, in addition tastes lettuce.
Pfifferling - an inferior edible mushroom ?
The chanterelle cannot be cultivated, because the mushrooms form symbiotic communities with certain forest trees. Also, it is not true that it grows only in the dark fir, oaks and beeches must be at least nearby. Since they are very sensitive to acidic soils, chanterelles have almost disappeared in our country, which is why the commercial trade in German mushrooms is forbidden (with the exception of those originating from certain areas of the Bavarian Forest).
In regions far from industrial areas, however, chanterelles still thrive in great numbers. Thus, the first ones usually come from Lithuania and then cost not a little. They are followed by Polish ones, whose price drops sharply at the time of the mushroom glut, down to 7 € per kilo. They are never cheaper, knows mushroom expert Brunhilde Noll, who has already been mentioned here. In the meantime, the family has acquired the oldest mushroom farm in Germany, located near Burbach in the Westerwald, where all kinds of mushrooms thrive, but, as I said, no chanterelles. The Nolls get them from a Polish trader from the Poznan region, who has an employee of the Fresenius Institute sitting with him during the season, measuring and certifying the radiation levels. Mrs. Noll emphasizes that her chanterelles never contain more than 20 Becquerel (although even those suitable for baby food may still be contaminated with 200 Becquerel; only if they contain more than 300 Becquerel do they go to customs). With wild imports, on the other hand, 3000 bequerels are not uncommon - bargain hunters, watch out!
The chanterelle - still called Pfefferling by Henriette Davidis - bears its name because it tastes, at least initially, of pepper. According to Magister Elsholtz, the mushroom, despite its resemblance to the Reizker, which he held in high esteem, is much less respected "and vors Gesinde verspeiset" the winter. In no mushroom guide or cookbook does anyone rave about the chanterelle, it merely says that it is edible; somewhere I read that it is "an inferior edible mushroom".
So much is not wrong with it, Mrs. Noll sees it the same way; but that it is now "not worth a chanterelle is exaggerated. It is not cheap, but what the landlords serve up for good money is hardly ever a miracle of taste, despite the bacon and cream. Because the mushrooms are not prepared properly, instead of being quickly fried, they are steamed. Cooking them for a long time in the large amount of liquid that inevitably escapes makes the mushrooms tough and unpalatable. But let's not fool ourselves: no chanterelle can hold a candle to porcini mushrooms, or even cultivated mushrooms prepared with common sense. Witzigmann makes the most of the simple with baked potatoes.
Fungus Farming
Brunhilde and Erwin Noll
Klein-Weinbacher Str. 1
35796 Weinbach-Kleinweinbach (near Weilburg/Lahn)
Phone: 06474-8071, Fax: 881539
from Waldemar Thomas