It’s been years since I foraged for chanterelle mushrooms beneath oak trees near a cottage that we rented out in the country. Alas, after five years of living on septic, we bought a house with city plumbing. We are urban people but I surely missed the fall and winter mushroom season. I only foraged for chanterelles because they were easy to identify. A beginner’s mushroom.
Our landlord Ray show us how to identify and clean them. For example, look under trees (not on trees) and check for forked gills (not true, separate gills of the false chanterelle). Partially air dry to make dirt removal easy.
My friends Jessica Largey and Aisha Ibrahim, the chef de cuisine and sous chef at Manresa restaurant, knew what they were looking for as they’d foraged for mushrooms for years. I was delighted when they handed me their hostess gift the other night. Aside from making a dumpling filling with chanterelles, a number of folks at the VWK Facebook page agreed that noodles would be great friends with the mushrooms.
For a Viet-French twist, I opted for these buttery garlic noodles with Maggi Seasoning sauce. It’s a riff on a noodle dish I grew up with and wrote about in Into the Vietnamese Kitchen. It’s also my take on the garlic noodles served at Crustacean restaurant. My version downplays the garlic so that you won’t wake up with regrets.
The method is easy and you can use another favorite mushroom, such as shiitake, or giant oyster mushroom. No dark gilled mushroom, or it may stain the dish too much.
I made small portions of this to start out with using French Bretel butter, Trader Joe’s organic, and Summerdale English butter. I liked the European butters for these noodles because they lent a nearly cheesy, extra rich flavor. Whatever you do, use a high-quality butter – something you’d lavish on a good piece of bread.
Remember to save some of the noodle cooking liquid for making the seasoning sauce. That’s a Italian trick so I guess this is a Viet-Franco-Italiano dish. It’s fun to make and makes an elegant rendition of a homey childhood favorite.
Recipe
Chanterelle and Garlic Butter Noodles
Yields: 4 side dish servings
Ingredients:
- 6 to 8 ounces (180 to 240 g) chanterelle or other kind of fresh mushroom
- 10 ounces (300 g) fresh or 8 ounces (240 g) dried noodles (use Chinese egg noodles or Italian pasta, choose a round or flat shape, i.e., spaghetti or linguine)
- 1 tablespoon Maggi Seasoning sauce
- Fish sauce, optional
- ¼ cup (60 g) plus 1 tablespoon high-quality butter, salted or unsalted
- 1 ½ tablespoons packed minced and mashed fresh garlic mixed with 2 teaspoons water
- Salt, kosher preferred, to taste
Instructions:
- Hand-tear the mushroom into pieces that are slightly larger than bite size. They’ll shrink during cooking. Set aside.
- Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add the pasta and cook until tender (go beyond normal, chewy al dente). Ladle out and reserve ½ cup of the slightly thick cooking liquid. Drain the pasta. Drain the pasta but do not flush it with water.
- To the reserved cooking liquid, add the Maggi seasoning sauce, and if you like, a bit of fish sauce. Taste and tweak to ensure a pleasant flavor. Set aside near the stove.
- Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and add the ¼ cup butter. Once it has melted, add the garlic. Cook, stirring frequently until aromatic, then add the chanterelle. Cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until softened, super fragrant and darkened. Add the reserved cooking liquid and stir to combine. When the mixture vigorously boils, raise the heat to high, then add the warm pasta.
- Cook, stirring with tongs, until the sauce clings to the pasta and there is no liquid visible in the skillet. Remove from the heat, season with salt, and then stir in the remaining 1 tablespoon butter to add a final rich note. Divide the noodles between 4 shallow bowls and serve immediately.
- Chanterelle, shrimp, and chicken dumpling recipe
- Vegetarian dan dan noodles (also made with Quon Yick noodles but are on the spicy/hot end of the spectrum)
