Sunday, January 17, 2010

Chanterelle & Roasted Sweet Pepper Bruschetta (or confit)

So, you start with 3 or 4 pounds of golden chanterelles... hey! Wait! Where are you going?  OK, I admit these kind of recipes are a challenge to folks who don't live in a place where forage for chanterelles, so please substitute other mushrooms.  Note that the cooking time will vary for button or cremini/portobello mushrooms since they don't hold as much water.

Chanterelle & Roasted Sweet Pepper Bruschetta
This is more of a process than a recipe - you may have some different ingredients preserved and seasonal availability differs.

3-4 pounds golden chanterelles, small dice
1 pint fire roasted sweet pepper (I like yellow)
1-2 cups dried yellow cherry tomatoes (or chopped up larger tomatoes)
2 c hazelnuts - toasted, peeled & coarsely chopped
8 cloves of garlic - peeled and minced
1 bunch of fresh thyme or 3-4 Tb dried
Other fresh herbs - rosemary & parsley, Meyer lemon zest
1/4 c dry sherry
Salt, pepper & chili flakes
Olive oil, as needed

  1. Heat a very large skillet (I love my cast iron) and warm the garlic til it starts to soften.
  2. Add the chanterelles - stir well so that the garlic doesn't all stay on the bottom of the pan and cook until the mushrooms start to release their liquid.
  3. Add the dried tomatoes and any dry herbs - we want the tomatoes to soften up in the mushroom liquid a bit.
  4. Add the roasted peppers and any fresh herbs - since they are soft when they come out of the mason jar - I usually tear them into strips with my fingers or use scissors - they will break down in the pan and I don't want the peppers to entirely disappear into the background here.
  5. Mix in the nuts, add olive oil as needed.  As the liquid reduces down a bit - add the sherry and allow it to reduce until you have just a little liquid in the pan.




Chanterelle & Roasted Sweet Pepper Confit

Add 1/2 c of white wine vinegar or champagne vinegar. Flavored light vinegar like a "blood orange champagne" vinegar added to the plain vinegar would give a nice flavor.  Put some of the bruschetta into a quart or pint mason jar, doctor it up with a little vinegar, seal and refrigerate for a couple hours or a week.  Yum!

2 comments:

Barbara GF said...

This sounds like a fabulous bruschetta, Jenn. I like the addition of hazelnuts in the mix.
You're lucky to be able to forage for chanterelles!

Anonymous said...

This sounds delicious! I would one day love to find some chanterelle mushroom.