Morels and Black Trumpets in Cream Sauce

Salut! It's Yoko, the France-obsessed home cook.

I made a seriously delicious cream sauce with morels and trompettes de la mort (black trumpets), mushrooms I bought at the recent France Week at Isetan.

Here are the morels and the trompettes de la mort (black trumpets, from here on).

(Morel on the left, trompette de la mort on the right)

The Black Trumpet That Doesn't Look Like a Mushroom

It honestly looks more like tree bark than a mushroom, doesn't it? lol

In French it's trompette de la mort, "trumpet of the dead,"

and the name probably comes from the trumpets that the angels blow in the Book of Revelation to announce the end of the world...

The name is a bit creepy, but they're delicious!

They have a lovely aroma and a pleasantly crisp texture, a bit like enoki mushrooms.

The Morel, a Prized Mushroom in France

And this is the morel, a mushroom as popular in France as truffles.

It can't be cultivated and is hard to find, so it's apparently precious.

In French it's morille, and in Japan it's called amigasatake.

In Japan you almost never see them fresh. Once in a while a restaurant will serve a few alongside meat.

They're expensive, so you only get a tiny bit. I'd love to eat them by the handful...

They're fragrant mushrooms that go incredibly well with rich, creamy sauces.

Morels and black trumpets apparently grow in Japan too

Some people find the honeycomb look of morels gross,

and black trumpets look like tree bark, so neither is well known as an ingredient in Japan.

But they actually grow in Japan. Morels apparently come up in spring.

Reading articles by people who go morel hunting around Japan, like matsutake hunting,

morels apparently grow not deep in the mountains but in relatively busy places, near udo plants or cherry trees.

I've been thinking I might find some if I walk along a green pedestrian path, so lately I've been looking,

and I found something that looked like it, but I haven't harvested a morel yet.

I'm planning to get serious and go morel hunting soon lol

Morel and Black Trumpet Cream Sauce

With those two rare mushrooms, plus some button mushrooms, I made a cream sauce!

Besides the mushrooms, the ingredients are 100 ml heavy cream, 1 tablespoon butter, 1/2 an onion, and salt and pepper. Very simple.

Morels and black trumpets have a delicate aroma, so if anything goes with them it would be shimeji.

I think it would be good with completely different mushrooms too.

First, melt the butter in a frying pan.

When the butter foams up with a sizzle, add the finely chopped onion.

Sauté until soft.

Add the morels too, and keep sautéing well.

Pour in the cream and simmer gently.

After a while the essence of the morels melts out and the cream turns slightly brown.

Season with salt and pepper, and it's done!

Super easy, but the simplicity is there so you can enjoy the aroma of the mushrooms!

Sole with Morel Cream Sauce

So how do you use the finished morel sauce?

For fish, how about sole?

It sounds expensive, but four palm-sized sole cost ¥450, so it isn't.

And sole is rich in protein!

First season with salt and pepper, then dust with flour.

This time I cut off the fin portion, but you can also remove it when eating, so either way is fine.

Then just pan-fry it in butter.

Done! I served it with boiled broccoli and lemon.

Wait, this is incredibly good...!?

Total restaurant-level flavor.

Roast Beef with Morel Cream Sauce

What about meat, you ask?

Of course it goes perfectly with meat too.

I generously poured it over roast beef.

I think it would also suit steak or grilled chicken.

I'll cover how to make the roast beef in a separate post.

Morel Cream Risotto

Finally, one bonus recipe.

I had a little morel sauce left over from making the roast beef, so I turned it into risotto.

Prepare 1 go (about 150 g) of rice for the risotto.

I got this rice through a furusato nozei (hometown tax donation) gift, on a friend's recommendation. It's meant for risotto, so it stays slightly al dente.

Regular rice is fine if you don't have it.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a frying pan and stir the rice until it turns translucent.

Add 200 ml milk, 400 ml water and 1/2 teaspoon bouillon, and simmer over medium-low heat.

Keep the liquid fairly soupy until the rice reaches the right firmness. Add more water as it reduces.

It's best to simmer for about 20 minutes.

When the rice is as tender as you like and the liquid has cooked down to a creamy consistency, turn down the heat and add the morel sauce.

If you have it, 1 tablespoon of white wine adds a nice aroma.

Season with salt and pepper.

If you have Parmigiano-Reggiano, grate in about a thumb-sized piece.
(It's delicious without it too.)

Mix well, plate it, and finish with pepper...!!

Restaurant-level flavor, again!

By the way, the proper way to eat risotto is with a fork.

It pairs perfectly with a full-bodied white wine.

Ahh, this is too good...

It felt like dinner at an Italian restaurant.

The morel sauce is very versatile, for fish, meat and risotto, so please give it a try.

I Can't Stop Loving Morels

So this time I shared the wonders of the morel along with some recipes.

Did my love for morels come through? (Sorry, I'm loud.)

Morels and black trumpets are hard to find in ordinary supermarkets in Japan, but dried ones can be bought online.

Mushrooms get more umami when dried, so I plan to buy some next time to compare them with fresh ones.

But apparently someone found morels in a flower bed... so I'll keep searching along the greenways for a while lol

See you next time! Au revoir!