Category Family Favorites

Mother Nature Proudly Serves Up One Of The Tastiest Treats, But Knowing The Secret Fried Morel Mushroom Recipe Is The Key

So you’ve been out in the woods for hours, gathering and collecting a plethora of mushrooms in your green mesh bag. Now what? You’ve never eaten a fried morel mushroom, let alone prepared them. Although the masses are excited about these woodland delicacies you have ZERO ideas about what to do now. Have you been conned into a cult-like ritual or is there something actually to the deliciousness of these hidden gems? Lucky for you that you’ve landed on this page because I will walk you step-by-step in preparing and cooking the ever-elusive Morel mushrooms. I share my very own family favorite Fried Morel Mushroom recipe and it’s so simple.

First Things First

First things first. You must clean the mushrooms you’ve gathered to get all the dirt and bugs out of them. Yes, there are BUGS in those mushrooms. What I like to do is first rinse them off. I normally give them their first cold water rinse just under the faucet stream.

Next, on my Gorilla Grip cutting board, I cut them long ways, down the middle, displaying two symmetrical sides. Under another water stream, I take my fingers and get in all the cracks and crevices to make sure all debris and bugs are thoroughly worked out.

The Next Step: Soaking

Not everyone soaks their mushrooms but I do. I like to make sure ALL the bugs are out even though I spend a lot of time during the rinsing process. Begin by placing the mushrooms in a roomy container. I fill it with cold water enough to completely cover the mushrooms and then add a teaspoon or two of salt ( I actually never measure this, I just dump).

And then I let it set overnight in the refrigerator.

After they’ve soaked for at least 24 hours you can rinse them one more time and they are ready to cook.

What You’ll Need As Far As Ingredients Go

Frying up your batch of Morels is one of the easiest things you’ll ever do. And my recipe takes the least amount of ingredients, which makes it super fast and easy. Mushrooms are not the prettiest but goodness sakes they are the tastiest. And in our household anything fried is ALWAYS yummy. The ingredients you need are: flour, eggs, canola oil (or whatever oil you prefer), and your prepared mushrooms. That’s it! Simple and basically what you probably already have in your cupboards.

Pan-Fried Battered Morel Mushrooms

Ingredients:

2 Cups All-Purpose Flour (in a separate container for rolling)

3 Eggs (beaten in separate container)

1/2 C Canola Oil

Cut and Prepared Mushrooms

Directions:

In a large skillet, put in your oil and turn the heat to medium to start to let it get hot. You want that first mushroom to sizzle when you put it in the skillet so depending on your stove, adjust accordingly. I usually put mine on medium and because I have a gas stove, it heats up pretty quickly. I will add that you can also use a deep fryer to fry your morel mushrooms. It’s just always easier for me to cook them on the stovetop.

I forgot to add in that I normally add salt and pepper to my flour before hand. Depending on your preference, you can add teaspoons of salt and a little pepper to your container of flour OR you can salt and pepper to taste while the mushrooms are cooking. Either way makes no difference in the end result. I do it both ways.

The Dipping Process

Next, I begin the process. Place your mushrooms in the egg batter (you can put a splash of milk in it also if you prefer) and make sure they are adequately saturated. However, make sure when you take them out of the egg dip that you don’t bring a big glob of egg with it. You’ll need all the egg batter, maybe even more, for the rest of the mushrooms.

Follow up by rolling into the flour mixture and then place the mushroom into the hot oil.

I’m not going to lie. This will be incredibly messy. Your fingers will get gunky with egg and flour but I promise you will survive it and the end result will be worth it.

Let the mushroom get good and brown on one side before you turn it over. When the other side turns brown it’s time to take it out. Drain well. I drain on papertowels. Some people use newspaper and although that’s not my tool of choice, I have used newspaper in those times where I had nothing but.

It’s Hard But Let Them Cool Before You Dig In

Let cool before eating, although in our house I can fill a plate full of cooling mushrooms and look back and they’re all gone. That’s the beautiful thing about frying up a pan of Morels. They are so delicious that you can’t stop eating them. I’ve been known to get horribly sick from eating too many. Once you’ve eaten your first one, you won’t be able to stay out of them.

Now You’re An Official Morel Mushroom Addict

There you have it. The steps from beginning to end. It only takes one bite to solidify what all your friends and family have been trying to tell you about the taste of the beloved Morel mushroom. If you don’t care for the taste after all this, that’s perfectly okay. They’re not for everyone. But for those of us who look forward to mushroom season every year, I can say that we LIVE for spring because we know that we’ll be devouring these tasty morsels in one fell swoop. Well that is, of course, if we get our butts out there and find them.

As for me and my house we shall eat gravy… every chance we get

Who doesn’t like gravy? Better yet, who doesn’t like finding a recipe that will stand the test of time in their family? My creamy country gravy recipe is one for the books.

I grew up with a mom who made gravy at every dinner meal. My parents didn’t have a lot of money so Mom’s thinking was that she needed to fill our bellies with as much as she could with the little that she had.

As a mom now myself, and with our every growing family, we eat the gravy. Usually on our deer steaks but we definitely eat it with biscuits and gravy.

And although I use whatever sausage I have on hand, deer breakfast sausage is my fave. Very little grease and ooh-la-la, that flavor. As I tell one of my little granddaughters it’s “yum to tum.”

I consider myself to be a good cook. Actually I consider myself to be a GREAT cook. But I have BEEN KNOWN to over season things once or twice. Maybe THREE times. Possibly FOUR, but no more than that, depending on who you ask.

We live and then we learn…sometimes the hard way

However, there might have been this one time that, ironically enough, it was opening morning of rifle season and we had a whole KITCHEN FULL of people. We had all just come in from our morning hunt and I was going to make biscuits and gravy for everyone.

A little back story. My father-in-law, who was there that morning also, had just had a heart attack the year before and had three, I believe, stints put in. He was watching his diet, sodium in particular.

That morning my cooking skills were on display because there were a couple of people that I didn’t really know that well. I was in performance mode.

We all know what happens to us when all eyes are on us, at least for me. I tried way to hard to impress and ended up, ACCIDENTALLY, putting too much salt in the gravy. I tried to mask it with more milk but that didn’t dilute it enough.

I served it like that hoping no one would notice. But they did, althought they did a REALLY great job of pretending it was edible. I watched each and every face as they took that first bite.

No one said a word, except for my father-in-law. He took that first bite and said, “Damn, Kelly! Are you trying to give me another heart attack? That gravy’s salty.” With that, everyone laughed. Even me. But even today, when I make this recipe, I hold that salt shaker in a little bit different position so that I don’t add too much.

For the record, I like salt.

My creamy country gravy recipe is really simple and one that you’re going to want to keep in your recipe arsenal. It’s so easy and has so few ingredients. Because it’s a favorite recipe in our family I wanted to share it with you.

Creamy Country Gravy Recipe

1/2 Cup  Canola Oil (I don’t think olive oil would work)

1/2 to 3/4 Cup  All Purpose Flour

1 tsp Salt

1 tsp Ground Black Pepper

4 Cups Milk

In a large skillet (because there will end up being so much) heat the oil over a medium heat. 

Carefully whisk in flour, pepper, and salt. I usually put my flour, salt, and pepper in a bowl separately and blend it first before adding it.

Stir until smooth, making sure it’s blended well and browned. 

Gradually stir in the milk and stir, stir, stir making sure there are no lumps forming.  It will bubble some but keep stirring until its the consistency that you desire and then take off the heat.

Moms really do always know best

One thing my mom taught me about making gravy, and believe it or not it was the ONLY thing she let me cook as a child (except macaroni and cheese out of the box) was that you have to stir CONTINUALLY. Because if you don’t it will clump up on the bottom of the skillet and be lumpy, not smooth.

I want to also say that when I make this recipe for biscuits and gravy I brown up some sausage before hand and add it in WHILE the gravy is being cooked.

So…listen to me, but especially listen to my mama. She put the “good” in being a good cook.

And that’s it!!! Perfect every time! Just remember to watch that salt!