My son has a thing for mushrooms. He has spent quite a bit time reading about them, and last year he started foraging for them. He brought me a bunch of morels to prepare and preserve for him. This year, he brought me more mushrooms to prepare for him.
He added some half-free morels and even a pheasant back mushroom. I have to tell you, it smells like watermelon. Seriously.
I did decide after frying all of those mushrooms that I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to make some delicious gravy.
As a vegetarian, I hardly ever have the makings for good brown gravy like when I was a kid.
It was delicious. Anyhow, all of my son’s interest in mushrooms has me paying a bit closer attention. Last week, when I was out making sure all the kids were with their moms in pasture, I saw a bright orange spot on my tree. Closer inspection revealed this fun guy.
Chicken of the Woods
I sent the picture to my son and asked if he wanted it, and he told me yes; it was called chicken of the woods. He stopped by on his way home, and we took the ladder out to pasture. I held it while he climbed up and cut it off the tree.
I did some investigating on how to prepare it and consulted with some facebook friends, and finally I decided to bread it and deep fry it. I did double dip in the flour and egg/milk pans to get it completely coated before putting it in the cracker crumbs.
I was a bit skeptical of it really tasting like chicken, but you know what.
It does. It was pretty good.
I even made mine into a sandwich, and it was good.
I have the rest of it prepared and frozen because it’s supposed to be easy to store that way.
Now I hope I find more of them.
Teresa
