greysRDbest said:

morels intensify in flavor when dried. and preparation is key on fresh ones...too much liquid involved can dull the flavor.


truffles can be stored with fresh eggs covered tightly in a bowl...the eggs after a few days gain truffle essence,
likewise a compund butter made with truffles and stored for a week gets a very deep truffle flavor.

theyre good...but not for everyone.
i like white truffle oil...it runs 22-25 dollars a bottle and a little goes a long way.

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Paresthesia said:

I think the key to getting a good, intense mushroomy flavor involves two key steps:

1. Put your mushrooms in a dry pan over medium-low heat with a pinch of salt, and keep them moving in the pan until they release their water.  Let some of that simmer off.
2. Add just enough butter (clarified butter if you've got it) or olive oil to keep the mushrooms from sticking, and brown them well.  You want a nice golden brown color on them.  Don't use too much butter, as it can overpower subtle mushroom flavors.

Once you've done this, they're ready for your omelet or a delicious topping for a steak.  Reducing the water content intensifies flavor, and the browning process both caramelizes the sugars and creates new flavor compounds as the proteins break down.

Oh yeah, don't inhale the fumes when cooking fresh morels.  The vapor is toxic.

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Yes, that's more or less the way I cook mushrooms too.   I put butter or oil first though to stop the mushrooms from sticking to the pan.  But I didn't know that morel vapour is toxic.

greysRDbest said:

i buy only white truffle oil.

too often black truffle oil is made with chinese truffles...which to be honest are horrible in every way imaginable.

spencers is an OK brand...not the best but easy to find.

if you find good quality real truffles they will have intense mushroom FLAVOR as well as smell. i almost wonder if you got ahold of chinese truffles and not european ones.

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Quote:

cutemushie said:Yes, that's more or less the way I cook mushrooms too.   I put butter or oil first though to stop the mushrooms from sticking to the pan.  But I didn't know that morel vapour is toxic.

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Paresthesia said:

Oh yeah, don't inhale the fumes when cooking fresh morels.  The vapor is toxic.

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Quote:

Mycorrhizae—Morels were originally thought to be saprobic (decomposing dead organic matter) because tested cultures grow rapidly in pure culture on simple nutrients such as starches, sugars, and nitrates (Robbins and Hervey 1959) and can be induced to fruit without association with plant hosts. Mycorrhizal fungi, by contrast, grow more slowly in pure culture and do not fruit without forming a symbiosis with their host plants.
Moser (1949) suggested that some morels might have the ability to form mycorrhizal symbioses with trees or at least to form mycorrhiza-like structures. Assuming that this relationship is optional for morels that also have saprobic abilities, this form of symbiosis has been called a “facultatively mycorrhizal” nutritional strategy.

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Quote:

Not only is it inappropriate to assume that both partners benefit equally, but the observable structure of a mycorrhiza does not necessarily correspond to its functions. We note these caveats because most tested morels have the saprobic abilities noted above, morel mycorrhizae sometimes exhibit weakly developed structural features,16 few studies have examined benefits to the trees, and some morels form a different type of association with the larger roots of some plants (see the following section on muffs).
Buscot and Kottke (1990) and Buscot (1992a, 1992c) described ectomycorrhizae17 on Norway spruce associated with M. rotunda, M. esculenta, and M. elata. Subsequently, Buscot (1994) described seven types of morel mycorrhizae with
Norway spruce. In these descriptions, Buscot noted that M. esculenta mycorrhizae featured minimal development of a Hartig net18 and suggested that other bacteria and fungi might be involved in facilitating the symbiosis (Buscot 1992c). With M. elata, Buscot (1992a) reported that morel mycorrhizae only formed as a “secondary” mycorrhizae after replacing previous mycorrhizae formed by other fungi. Harbin and Volk (1999) reported that M. esculenta and M. elata were facultatively mycorrhizal with apples, elms, and black spruces. They reported formation of typical ectomycorrhizae and noted that inoculated seedlings grew more than noninoculated control seedlings. Although apples and elms are not common hosts of ectomycorrhizal fungi, they can be (Molina and others 1992), and morels certainly fruit in proximity to these trees. Dahlstrom and others (2000) reported that mountain blond morels and natural black morels from the Pacific Northwest formed several typical mycorrhizal structures (ecto- and ectendomycorrhizal) with ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, western larch, and lodgepole pine. To date, we know of no reports of fire morels being tested for their ability to form mycorrhizae.
Hobbie and others (2001) provided additional circumstantial evidence that morels might use both saprobic and mycorrhizal nutritional strategies. They studied isotope ratios in a variety of fungi noting that: “In general mycorrhizal fungi are enriched in 15N and depleted in 13C relative to saprobic fungi.” The Morchella specimens they sampled yielded intermediate values.
A not-yet-tested hypothesis is that morels, by forming mycorrhizae, might also be positioning themselves to rapidly decompose the fine root tips of trees when these roots senesce or the tree dies. Abundant morel fruiting following tree death could be facilitated by such a flush of nutrients (Dahlstrom and others 2000, Pilz and others 2004, Vrålstad and others 1998).

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cutemushie said:

If truffles are famous only for it's smell, wouldn't it be way better making synthetic smells and flavours similar to truffles instead of having the real thing?  It'd be way easier and cheaper.

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J3illy said:

cutemushie said:

If truffles are famous only for it's smell, wouldn't it be way better making synthetic smells and flavours similar to truffles instead of having the real thing?  It'd be way easier and cheaper.

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I was reading about truffles a couple months ago, and found out they do indeed do this, with synthetic truffle oil/flavoring.  Alot of chefs apparently use it and claim there's not much of a difference, but the high end haute cuisine chefs swear by the real thing.

And like someone else mentioned, are you sure you got the real French ones, and not the Chinese ones like he said?  They're also growing truffles in the USA now too, down south somewhere.

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