The folks over at Marx foods were kind enough to send me a few ounces of dried whole morel mushrooms and asked me to write an original recipe featuring them. I’ve been embarrassingly psyched about this for the past few weeks, and knew it would be a challenge: I’m used to using morels in sauces and soups, since they’re mad expensive, yo! In a soup, you can puree them with fresh shiitakes, dried porcinis, and fresh oyster mushrooms, but when you’re lucky enough to get a few hefty servings of high-quality morels, you gotta make sure the spotlight’s on them.
I’ve been experimenting with puff pastry lately, and thought — hey! These woodsy, flavorful dudes would be awesome as a tart filling. And dude. They were. They were so awesome. Let me take you on a journey. A journey of the taste buds.
Morel Tartlet Recipe
makes three tartlets
Ingredients
As many ounces of dried morels as you can afford/get for free. In this case, I’m eyeballing it and I would I got 2 ounces. HOLLA!
1/2 cup of creme fraiche
1/2 cup finely grated gruyere
salt and pepper
1 finely chopped shallot
1/4 LB pancetta, diced
1 sheet puff pastry dough, thawed
6 quail eggs (weirdly available at almost all Asian supermarkets for about $2 per 6-pack)
1 egg (quail or regular, you’ll only use a little) whisked with 1 TBSP water
Splash of dry white wine
Pat of butter
Dried morel powder (optional — I’ll explain)
Chives, for garnish
Preheat your oven to 425 degrees.
Reconstitute your mushrooms by boiling water in a medium saucepan with a lid. When it boils, add morels and remove from heat (or keep over the lowest setting) for 50 minutes to one hour.
Roll puff pastry dough out to 1/2” thickness on a lightly floured surface (kitchen too small for a rolling pin? Use a floured Pom glass or another uniformly-shaped glass). Using a soup bowl (4” in diameter) and a sharp knife, press out 3 circles in your puff pastry dough (if they won’t release when you press the bowl into the dough, use the knife to cut around the bowl). Any extra dough can be cut into triangles or rectangles because trust me — don’t waste your puff pastry. It’s jammin. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet, then poke holes in the center of each circle and score the edge (a border 1/4” deep, if you will). This prevents the puff pastry from becoming one huge puff when you cook it. If you screw up and forget, I won’t tell and you won’t care.
Brush the border of the puff pastry circles (and the entirety of your mismatched rectangles/triangles) with your egg wash (the egg white you beat with water). Place in refrigerator.
In a bowl, stir grated gruyere in with creme fraiche. Season with salt and pepper. If you have dried morel powder, add in about a quarter teaspoon — if not, use a blender or food processor to grind up a dried morel or two, then push through a strainer and mix that in instead. Place in refrigerator to chill.
In a medium saucepan, cook diced pancetta over medium-low heat until fat renders and pancetta crisps and turns golden brown. Remove pancetta from heat and set aside. Discard rendered fat, but do not wash pan. Replace on burner and turn heat to medium-low. Add butter and shallots and stir, continuing to cook until they are translucent.
Strain morels from liquid, reserving 1/4 cup of liquid. Either by hand or in a food processor, chop morels finely, but reserve three whole morels for garnish. Add chopped and whole morels to shallots, and add splash of wine and reconstituting liquid. Season with salt and pepper and allow to simmer for 15-20 minutes, until liquid has reduced and mushrooms are tender.
Remove puff pastry from refrigerator and spread cheese/creme fraiche mixture in the center, keeping borders clean. You can also spread the mixture on your triangles/rectangles, keeping a small border so the cheese doesn’t burn onto your cookie sheet. Sprinkle pancetta evenly on circles and rectangles. Place in oven for 12-15 minutes, until crust is golden (but not brown), rotating cookie sheet halfway through cooking.
Remove from oven, then spoon morel mixture (and any pan sauce) evenly onto your circles (but not your rectangles, as it would be messy). Keep whole morels in a bit of sauce, adding another splash of wine if necessary, over lowest heat setting. Top each puff pastry circle with a quail egg, and place a quail egg on 3 of your rectangles if you don’t manage to crack and destroy the yolks for the circles, and need extras (this will probably happen). Replace in oven for 4 minutes, until the egg whites are set, but the yolks still quiver.
Scatter plates with chopped chives. On each place, place one tartlet circle. Prop a rectangle against it (with quail egg or without), and place your whole, sauteed morel on the plate for garnish. Top with another scatter of chives.
I served this with a simple mache salad and a ridiculously expensive bottle of white burgundy. I’ll be eating In N Out for the rest of the week to make up for it, but seriously…it was worth it.
They gave me free morels, so if you need mushrooms, be a dear and spend your pension here please:
