Mushroom Soup Tip – Fried Dried Mushrooms

The Italians fry dried peppers in olive oil and garnish with kosher or sea salt. I have done this with fresh peppers, but never dried. Anyway, I experimented with throwing dried mushrooms in the mix and it worked great!

Recently I served Chanterelle Soup from a recent trip to Oregon and garnished with fried dry mushrooms (instead of croutons). I tried dried Craterellus and Winter Chanterelles (Yellowfoot) and both worked very well. Since the mushrooms were not reconstituted in water, there was a little grit from the horns, so I have decided that dried Winter Chanterelles are best for this as they are a bit cleaner. Just a few minutes in the hot olive oil until they puff up a bit is enough.

Any way, try putting a little crunch in your soup with this idea. I certainly will do this again and have a large amount of dried Yellowfoot and expect to get more in January.

Enjoy!

--Jim Maley

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