The most delicious morel recipe ever?

By Daniel Butler: Author and forager

There seem to be a lot of morels this year. These seem most common in bark mulches in gardens, park borders and supermarket car parks. For those lucky enough to find them, this naturally leads to how to best to use them.

Morels are a delicious early mushroom - typically found in alkaline woodland or in bark mulches

(Picture: Author’s own)

Morels dry extremely well one of the small group of mushrooms that reconstitute to something very like the fresh version. When cooking – fresh or reconstituted - they work really well in creamy sauces and with white meats and fish.

The nicest way I’ve ever had them, however, was on a skiing trip in the French Alps. The local delicatessen sold fondue kits. One could hire a Le Creuset pot with a small meths burner plus long forks. The package also came with floured cheese and a tub of morels marinating in white wine. Obviously, you could (and would) buy baguettes and vegetables for dipping.

The result was truly delicious! One of the most spectacular wild mushroom dishes I’ve ever had and I recreated it soon after our return.

Fondues are a great cold-weather comfort food - even better with morels

(Picture: Stock)

In theory one ought to use waxy Alpine cheeses, but it’s not critical and it seems better to use a high quality local cheese where appropriate. After all, this is just the base of the dish – the real flavour comes from the mushrooms. In a similar vein, a good quality cider is just as good as dry white wine (although confirmed tea-totallers could certainly use apple or grape juice).

25g            Dried morels (better still, 100g fresh)

150ml        Dry white wine

1 tbspn      Cornflour

500g          Grated hard waxy cheese (I favour organic Caerphilly or a good quality cheddar)

 Assorted ‘dunking’ material: bread (cubed), tomatoes, button mushrooms, cucumber, celery etc.

 Soak the mushrooms in the wine for at least a couple of hours, then chop coarsely and return to the liquid. Heat the wine and mushrooms slowly on the stove and meanwhile mix the grated cheese with the cornflour. When the wine begins to bubble, slowly stir in handfuls of the cheese/flour mix. Once this has emulsified, transfer to the fondue set that has lain unused and dust-covered in a cupboard for the past 30 years. Eat by dipping in cubes of bread, cherry tomatoes, mushrooms or anything else that you think goes with gooey cheese. The mix thickens as the meal progresses – so don’t worry if it seems a little watery at the start. If you are feeling playful, then you can also institute a system of forfeits for dropping bread or vegetables into the cheese mix.