Morel Sauce Recipes

Steps:

• Melt 1/4 cup butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add onions and garlic; saute until onions are soft and translucent, about 10 minutes. Transfer to a bowl, and set aside.
• In the same skillet, melt 1/2 cup butter over medium heat. Add morels, and season with salt and pepper. Saute until morels are soft and their released juices have reduced so they just cover bottom of pan, about 20 minutes.
• Return onion mixture to skillet. Add wine, and cook until it has reduced by half, about 7 minutes. Add chicken stock and cream; cook, stirring occasionally, until liquid is bubbling and starts to thicken, 18 to 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat, and stir in dill just before serving.

Steps:

• Season the chicken generously all over with salt and pepper.
• Heat the olive oil in a large heavy pan over medium-high heat. Once the oil is shimmering and just starting to smoke, add the chicken skin-side down and cook until golden brown all over, flipping halfway through, about 12 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a plate; set aside.
• Return the pan to medium heat and add the shallots and garlic to the pan. Cook, stirring often, until the shallots are soft and the garlic is lightly browned, about 2 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook, gently stirring and scraping up any browned bits from bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon, until the mushrooms begin to release liquid, about 2 minutes. Transfer the mushroom mixture to a medium bowl and set aside.
• Add the wine to the pan and bring to a boil. Cook until the wine is reduced by half, about 4 minutes. Add the broth and thyme and bring back to a boil. Return the chicken to the pan, skin-side up, along with any juices from the plate and cover with the lid slightly ajar. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer until the chicken is cooked through, about 15 minutes.
• Swirl in the cream and return the mushroom mixture to the pan. Simmer (uncovered) over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until the sauce thickens slightly, about 8 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Place the chicken on a serving plate, spoon the mushroom sauce over and sprinkle with chives.

Steps:

• If necessary, trim off ends of morels. If they are large cut in half or in quarters, depending on size.
• Heat butter in saucepan and add shallots. Cook, stirring, until wilted.
• Add morels and cook, shaking saucepan and stirring often, about 2 minutes.
• Add wine and cook about 1 minute. Add cream, salt and pepper. Bring to boil and cook about 1 minute. Serve as vegetable or, if desired, on toast or on freshly cooked, drained pasta.

Steps:

• Combine morels and 2 cups boiling water in 8x8x2-inch glass dish. Let soak until mushrooms soften, stirring occasionally, at least 1 hour and up to 3 hours. Using slotted spoon, transfer mushrooms to small bowl; reserve soaking liquid. Melt butter in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add shallot and sauté 3 minutes. Add brandy and shake pan until brandy has almost evaporated, about 1 minute. Add chicken broth and cream. Slowly pour in mushroom soaking liquid, leaving any sediment behind in bowl. Add mushrooms. Bring sauce to boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil gently until sauce thickens enough to coat spoon, about 30 minutes.
• (Mushroom base can be made 2 days ahead. Refrigerate uncovered until cold, then cover and keep refrigerated.)
• Pour all pan juices from roasting pan into small bowl. Spoon off fat from top; pour juices into mushroom base in saucepan. Place roasting pan over 2 burners set at medium heat. Pour in Sherry. Boil 1 minute, scraping up browned bits; pour into mushroom base. Boil sauce until reduced to 3 cups, about 8 minutes; season with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl. Serve with pork.

Steps:

• In a small heavy saucepan boil water with sugar, without stirring, until a golden caramel. Remove pan from heat and carefully add red-wine vinegar and 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar down side of pan (mixture will bubble and steam). Stir mixture over moderate heat until caramel is dissolved,
• about 3 minutes. Remove pan from heat.
• In a heavy saucepan cook morels in butter, stirring, over moderate heat until liquid from morels is evaporated, about 5 minutes. Transfer morels with a slotted spoon to a bowl and reserve. Add shallots to pan and cook, stirring, until golden. Stir in wine and boil until reduced to about 1 cup, about 15 minutes. Add stock and reserved morel soaking liquid (if using dried morels) and reduce to about 1 1/4 cups, about 15 minutes.
• Remove pan from heat and stir in caramel mixture. Sauce may be prepared up to this point 2 days ahead and chilled, covered. Chill morels separately, covered. Reheat sauce over moderate heat before proceeding with recipe. Add morels to sauce with salt and pepper to taste. If desired stir in additional balsamic vinegar, 1 teaspoon at a time, and lemon juice.
• To soak dried Morels:
• Dried morels should be rehydrated in twice their volume of warm water until tender, 10 to 30 minutes. Lift morels out of soaking liquid and strain liquid through a fine sieve into a bowl, reserving it if desired. Pat drained morels dry with paper towels. (Do not eat raw morels as they can cause digestive disorders.)

Steps:

• Bring to a boil 2 pots of water, one small and one large, and salt both. Cook the peas for 1 minute in the small pot; drain and cool quickly by submerging in ice water.
• Meanwhile, melt half the butter in a skillet. Cut the morels into 4 pieces each, the long way, and brown them lightly in the butter, seasoning them with salt and pepper.
• Cook the pasta until it is nearly done. Just before draining, toss the peas and remaining butter with the morels and turn the heat to medium. Drain the pasta, reserving a little of the cooking water. Toss the pasta with the morels and peas, adding a little water if necessary to make the mixture saucy. Toss with the Parmesan and lots of black pepper and serve immediately.

Steps:

• Soak the dried morel mushrooms in the red wine just long enough to rehydrate them, about 20-30 minutes is usually sufficient. (I use a plastic container with a lid for this step. That way, I can tilt the container occasionally or shake it around a bit, to be sure all the mushrooms are adequately rehydrating.).
• After the mushrooms are rehydrated, place them in a colander and rinse with cool water to remove any grit from the mushrooms. Leave the colander in the sink to allow the excess water to drain from the colander.
• Finely mince the rehydrated mushrooms; set aside.
• In a large skillet, saute the minced shallots in butter just until they are clear, about 3-4 minutes. Add the minced mushrooms and beef base, and stir well. While stirring, add the cream and pepper, continuing to stir constantly until the sauce is thickened.
• Spoon the sauce over grilled steaks (especially New York or Sirloin), veal, lamb, grilled chicken breasts, or pasta.
• NOTE: For the wine, it doesn't really matter what kind of red wine you use. The wine is just to rehydrate the mushrooms, not to really flavor the sauce. So feel free to use whatever red wine you have on hand. I have used a lot of different red wines for this sauce, and they all seem to work just fine. But I probably use merlot and cabernet the most. But if a different variety of red wine is your favorite, then by all means use it. That way, if you use a wine you actually enjoy drinking, then it's more likely you'll enjoy using it in this recipe.