Nettle Soup With Buttery Honey Garlic Saffron Milk Caps, And Foraging Tales

in Fungi Lovers2 years ago

The saffron milk caps keep coming in the pine plantations near me. Sadly they're all being harvested so I don't think I'll be able to have the same feast as this year. I'm almost sick of them to be honest but still, every time I fry them in butter, I'm in love all over again! On this walk, I collect lots of little ones as there's sooo many, but leave plenty for others. The rain from the last few days have made them all excitedly fruit. If you're looking, you can't really see them from the car - they're more likely to be pushing up under pine needles and grass like this little guy.

I also found some slippery jacks, which I've wanted to find for ages. I still haven't the will nor courage to actually eat them - they can cause a stomach upset and you have to peel off the cap. They're very mucousy and kinda gross. I"d love to hear from @qwerrie or @ligayagardener about these! I've never actually heard anyone go 'ooh, yummy, slippery jacks' but I know people dry them for use in stocks and so on. I guess anything edible is a bonus, but I think next time I'll leave this one be, at least for another forager to get excited about.

I'd really love to go further afield too as I heard 6kg of porcini were found in the Macedon Ranges by one Australian mushroom hunter. That's an hour and a half from me so I might try to do that this week. For now, I have the beautiful pine forests which I'm growing to love a lot, having spent a lot of time in them of late. There's something so magical and quiet about them.

Last week I was at the Melbourne markets and found pine mushrooms, as saffron milk caps are also known by, for $55 a kilo. Isn't that crazy? I thought of selling some locally but as soon as you make people see something wild and free has value, the place would be ransacked.

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The other thing I found of interest in the forest are these red amanitas. I notice one has white dots, the other hasn't. Talking to Dad in the hospital this week, he tells me that his Mum used to pick the white dotted ones (muscaria) and boil them up and eat them. I presume she'd toss the liquid first. Now we're all raised to see them as deadly poisonous, but as I heard somehow say, if we ate them culturally, the guidebooks might say 'poisonous unless boiled and liquid discarded'. I find it fascinating. We also met a guy in the woods who was microdosing psilobins and collecting these amanita to dry and sprinkle in his tea. THe muscimol, one of hte chemicals in these mushrooms, is meant to be good for PTSD and anxiety. I really want to try them but I daren't. I'd love to hear from anyone who has experience here.

I've found the saffron milk caps to be great in stir fries as they don't go slimy like ordinary mushrooms and keep their firmness. They have quite a bite to them and a very mild flavour. I do like them best in butter though. Lactarius deliciousa, as they're known, 'lactate' or exude saffron coloured liquid which turns the butter a beautiful colour. It's this I make to top a soup - sauteeing garlic tops and spring onions in the butter first, then adding the mushrooms and giving them a good cook before adding a little garlic honey, salt and pepper.

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For the soup, it had to be wintery nettle soup, the spiky green leaves foraged from my garden where they have finally planted themselves in a convenient position near the compost. I don't mind, as I do harvest a lot for tea and soup, so they don't get out of control.

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To make the soup is soup-er easy. To serve two, grab four potatoes and an onion, and saute the onion before adding water, stock and potatoes, and a good handful of the nettles. Don't worry about chopping them - the blender will do that work. Just don't get stung. Some people LIKE being stung by nettles but I'll be fine, thanks. I also added a few spoonfuls of dried shitake, dried oyster mushrooms, dried saffies, and dried porcini. All those beta glucans and fibre have got to do some good, right?

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Then you simply puree it in a blender and add seasoning to taste, and drizzle the garlicky saffies on the top. I served it with warm flatbread.

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It's been a few days since I ate this soup and though I was almsot sick of saffies, even looking at my pictures makes me want to rush out and pick some more. I'll give it a few days for the rain to do it's work and the mushrooms to recover from the weekend foragers. Or maybe I'll go porchini hunting at Mt Macedon.

And if you're in Australia and like medicinal mushrooms, here's a $12 off coupon for your first order at Life Cykel. To accept, use my referral link:
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With Love,

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you have to peel off the cap.

actually, I think I mentioned that in comment section of your previous post, that slippery jacks are not my fave - absolutely due to this annoying extra preparation.. they are just too slippery and rubbish-absorbing xD

you have to peel off the cap.

actually, I think I mentioned that in comment section of your previous post, that slippery jacks are not my fave - absolutely due to this annoying extra preparation.. they are just too slippery and rubbish-absorbing xD

Yes ew... I think I'll leave them alone.

Fun story, I was reading on the Australian Mushroom Foragers group on Facebook that some guy found six kg of PORCINI... A miracle here!

Anyway some guy went on and said.. could you have saved some? As I was bringing a photographer out that afternoon. He was a bit grumpy and everyone told him to calm down.

Turns out he was the guy who spread the porcini spores there and had been nurturing them all season. No wonder he was upset. He did say no, no, it's okay, happy for you.. he was just understandably disappointed
.

What I really loved is that there are mycophiles out there seeding Aussie forests with edible European mushrooms. So maybe, just maybe, one day I will find porcini.

could you have saved some? As I was bringing a photographer out that afternoon.

oh!... I totally understand this... and, know what, as a photographer -- I am on the side of that man, who "distributed the spores" and cared of them... of course, in a case he is telling the truth. ehehe. Porcini are a great mushrooms, so the foraging rivalry for them is very understandable.
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Hello @riverflows 🙂

I am amazed at the way you are so enthusiastic about mushrooms and at the same time I can notice your curiosity to explore more and I like that...

Mushrooms in general have a special characteristic and at the same time a beta, here few of us know about their usefulness and which ones can be edible or not, even in my career I hardly heard about it, unless it affects a crop and it's a pity because I'm sure we would be surprised of their characteristics...
I like what you say 🙃

Greetings! 🤗

MALOMI TV 💙

Thankyou! I think my friends will be happy when mushroom season is over and I stop talking about them ahah.

It's just a matter of learning, then you know which ones to eat!

hahahahahah so I was not mistaken in the perception that you were passionate about the subject... 😊 Happy day 🌼 @riverflows

55 Bucks! I'm in the wrong business!

Slipperies aren't my favourites, as a matter of fact, I don't pick them of Weeping Boletes any more. As you say, by the time you get the skin off and unless you are drying them, the spongy spore material under the cap, there isn't much left to eat and you get all sticky and slimy and not in the good way either!

There'll be a post on them in my mushroom series but not until next week!

This looks so yummy ! a neighbor here makes nettles pesto that I totally adore.
as for foraging, we get lots of Asparagus and once or twice a (lucky) year, a good amount of Macrolepiota procera. great fleshy taste. I prefer them in stews, but gorgeous in butter too !

Macrolepiota procera.. too scared to look, given it looks like other poisonous ones! But when you know you know, right? Nettle pesto sounds great! I've always wanted to make nettle gnocchi.