Chanterelles for comfort

Today, I noticed that it's already well into autumn and it's getting cold, dark and depressing out there. The lazy summerdays in the park are really gone and just a memory. This also means that I should be having soon a bunch of finished plans and drawings for school instead of doodling with ideas in my head. The best solution to this, naturally, is to do something completely else. Like cleaning up or cooking.

I chose cooking since one needs to eat anyway. The obvious choice for tonight's meal is comfort food. I was contemplating on making a quiche but in Bouchon style it would take three days to finish by my quick calculations. Then I figured out I need risotto. I was originally planning on using the red beets I had bought earlier for some reason but then decided that I wanted porcini mushrooms.

So off I went to the local department store Stockmann's. They have renovated their food department so it's painstakingly difficult to find anything. It also turned out that they have this campaign called The Crazy Days which equals to masses of zombies bumping into while carrying yellow plasticbags. This sure can become a true battle to survive but luckily I found a shortcut to the checkout and lived to tell the tale. And of course there were no porcinis, I had mistaken some portobello mushrooms as them. The portobellos have always remained a mystery to me, they look a bit like porcinis but are still not them. I do have a vague recollection of making a risotto of them, though, which turned out ok I guess, but nothing really memorable. Instead I picked up some funnel chanterelles which were on sale (yay!) and after making such a good bargain headed home with some guilt emerging with fact that I had never used them before.

This is how they look in the woods (via Wikimedia Commons).

And this it's how they look in my place. Depressing, isn't it.

This awakens the ever present feeling of guilt that I didn't go to the woods and pick some by myself. I've heard people do that. And I also have some sort of a memory of going to pick blueberries or chanterelles with my now late grandfather but I guess I never took the habit growing up, the urbanite I became later on to be.

So on with the recipe, it's adapted from the Risotto of Wild Mushrooms from Gordon Ramsay's Gordon Ramsay makes it easy. Although I'm not really a fan of him at all I have to admit it's a nice book and maybe the one I go back for inspiration from the limited recipe book selection of mine. As I modified the recipe so much I'll go through shortly what I did:

1. Cut the onion, make the stock (I used some liquid form chicken stock extract). For my needs I figure the stock doesn't need to be simmering on the stove since it's so small anyway. So I just boil water and keep the stock in a bowl.

2. Saute the onions. Add the rice (around 2,5dl). Saute some more. Add around one glass of white wine.

3. Add the stock in ladlefuls until it absorbs. Repeat until al dente.

4. When the risotto itself is ready saute the mushrooms until cooked and stir into the risotto.

5. Stir in some creme fraiche and parmesan and off you go!

Yes it would look like brown mush even it was on focus... But hey, so does the counterpart too!

 I was somewhat dissappointed with the endresult, though. Maybe I overcooked the rice, maybe the cheapo creme fraiche turned on me, probably both, the conclusion being there have been better ones made by me. Anyway, the mushrooms were nice and I guess I got comforted enough by cooking this. Better luck next time.

-L