New spuds and wild mushrooms - delicious
By Tom Gillespie
LAST week I enjoyed two of my favourite summer foods - wild field mushrooms and new, home-grown potatoes.
The good weather earlier in the year ensured there would be a good crop of wild mushrooms, but I never expected the fungi to appear so early.
Usually it is late August or early September before I go foraging. The constant heat and the recent rain had them cropping earlier.
The first morning I went picking the mushrooms, following a much welcomed tip-off of where to search, I got a fine bag of flat mushrooms.
The first batch were fried and served on toast for breakfast - delicious.
A few mornings later the slugs were having their mushroom breakfast when I went into the field. However, I was able to pick enough to make concentrated mushroom stock, four containers, that are now secure in my deep freeze, and will make the tastiest mushroom soup around Christmas time.
To make the stock, first check the wild mushrooms for any traces of slugs or other invaders. Then you need one onion, thinly sliced, one leek top, washed and chopped, four garlic cloves, in their skins, crushed with the side of a knife blade, one ounce of dried shiitake mushrooms - available in most supermarkets, one teaspoon of salt, half-a-teaspoon of peppercorns, the wild mushrooms, sliced, two small carrots, chopped, six parsley sprigs, coarsely chopped, three fresh thyme sprigs, two fresh marjoram or oregano sprigs, two fresh sage leaves, two bay leaves and nine cups of waters.
Pour just enough water into the stockpot to start the onions cooking. Add the onion, leek top, garlic, shiitake mushrooms and salt. Give the vegetables a stir, then cover the pot and cook gently over medium heat for 15 minutes.
Add the remaining ingredients and cover with nine cups of cold water. Bring the stock to a boil, then simmer, uncovered, for one hour. Pour the stock through a strainer, pressing as much liquid as you can from the vegetables, and then discard them.
Let the liquid cool and pour into containers and freeze.
I remember some years ago being on Inishturk at the beginning of September. As an early riser, I took a walk around the island and on the home lap I spotted mushrooms in Pakie O’Toole’s field. Not having a bag, I picked as many as I could carry and returned to Mary Catherine Heanue’s B&B where we had them for breakfast.
The unusual thing about these ‘plate’ mushroom was the brown skin which I had to remove, to be told this was by way of protection from the salt from the nearby sea.
When frying wild mushrooms I find it best to fry them slowly in butter on a low heat, with a bit of salt to bring out the juices, for perfect results and taste.
On March 14, two days before the Corona lockdown, I purchased two bags of blight-free Colleen seed potatoes in Horkan’s Garden Centre for growing in my greenhouse.
In the last six years I had sown the blight-free Orla variety so the Colleen brand were new to me.
I left them to sprout for over a week and then with all the time in the world, as I was cocooning, I cleaned out the greenhouse, and set them in four containers, watering them regularly. The end result was a beautiful new potato, better in taste, in my opinion, to the Orla variety.
Unfortunately, the first diggings vanished rather quickly as members of my family got word that the new spuds had been harvested.
I had also purchased tomato plants which joined the potatoes in the greenhouse - Gardener’s Delight, Red Profusion, Alicante, and Supersweet.
On my inside windowsill I had sown cucumber, chilli and aubergine seeds and when they were a few inches high, I transplanted them to the greenhouse.
In the very hot period during lockdown the temperature in the greenhouse was extreme and I had to water the plants daily, leaving the windows and door open 24/7.
The Colleen variety proved to be excellent eating spuds but like the Orla they should be steamed rather than boiled.
However, I am going to try cooking a batch of them in seawater. Newport skipper Darragh McGee introduced me to this method when we fished with him on Clew Bay last year.
His treat to anglers was new spuds cooked in seawater along with freshly caught and cooked on the boat mackerel.
So now that we are allowed to travel again I will take a spin to Old Head and after a brisk walk on the beach I will fill a container with seawater and try out Darragh’s recipe and I’ll report back.
Meanwhile, the different tomato plants are coming on well. The first cucumbers have been picked and the chilli and aubergines are shaping up well.
Padraic Horkan will, maybe next month, be advising customers to sow ‘new’ potatoes for Christmas. I tried them a few years ago but the return was poor as all I got were ‘poreens’. Maybe I’ll try them again this year.