Girolle out the pasta: Chanterelle Tagliatelle

My favourite foraging season is finally here - it's time for Chanterelles! There is nothing more exciting (for me), than walking through woods and spotting the orangey-yellow glint of a Chanterelle in the undergrowth.

I have found a few Chanterelles in woods near Kincardine, but I still like to make my annual pilgrimage to the East Neuk, to pick Chanterelles in Tentsmuir Forest.

As ever, before you pick and eat any wild food, please make sure that you have identified it correctly. I wasted many hours last year in a debate with a 'forager' on twitter, who was celebrating a giant haul of Chanterelles. What he had actually picked were False Chanterelles.

Falsies - or False Friends, as my mum calls them - aren't poisonous, but they neither smell nor taste like the true Chanterelle. Chanterelles smell like apricots and I have previously found them just by sniffing the air and following the scent.

There are many poisonous (often fatally) mushrooms in the UK, so please take care, check and double-check identifying features. If you are in any doubt, then do not eat what you find.

A fact that makes many of my friends laugh, is that I'm not particularly fond of eating mushrooms, despite my joy of foraging them. I do like the flavour of mushrooms, but I'm not keen on the texture. To remedy this, I decided to employ a technique from my last blog post and to use powdered Chanterelles in my recipe:

Chanterelle Tagliatelle

Ingredients

350g fresh Chanterelle - dried and powdered (I use a dehydrator and a coffee grinder) - this produced 30g of powder.
170g '00' Flour
2 eggs

Method

Mix together Chanterelle powder and flour in a bowl
Tip mixture onto a clean surface, make into a mound and make a well in the centre
Crack the eggs into the well and mix with a fork
Gradually mix in the flour until you have a sticky dough
Knead thoroughly for 10mins
Wrap dough in cling film and refridgerate for 1hr+
Work dough through pasta machine or roll out by hand until it is paper-thin
Fold and cut into strips or feed through tagliatelle attachment on pasta machine
Boil in salted water for 3-4mins (al dente)
Serve

I served this with a simple cheese sauce (parmesan and mozzarella mixed with a roux base and milk).

I loved the colour of this pasta and it tasted superb! I will definitely use this technique again, come Porcini season.

Until I write again, Happy Foraging! Xx