http://www.messengernews.net/Lifestyle/articles.asp?articleID=3272
Giant puffballs a big find
By JOHN MOLSEED, Messenger staff writer
Messenger photo by Hans Madsen
The puffball mushroom can be used as an ingredient in any number of soups. Steve Sullivan, of Fort Dodge, shows off a giant puffball he and his friend, Mike Wessel, of Fort Dodge, found while fishing near Lehigh. They had no luck fishing, but the duo came home with seven big puffballs. This one was about 16 inches in diameter. If puffballs are white, they’re good; if green or yellow, pitch them, Wessel said.
Late summer and fall provide an unrivaled myriad of produce in Iowa. Farmers markets and gardens erupt with a rainbow array of fruits and vegetables. Hobby cooks anticipate this time of year like a small child waits for Christmas.
Still, an article about how to make a meal out of something that looks vaguely like a half-deflated volleyball someone discarded in the woods is a little offbeat.
Anyone who has been in Iowa in the spring knows about the annual mania that morel mushrooms incite. People pay premium prices for the prize fungus. Morel hunters guard their fruitful hunting grounds with high caliber firearms. Well, maybe not — yet.
Another lesser-known mushroom makes its annual appearance throughout the state in the late summer and early fall, but the giant puffball mushroom doesn’t spark the same frenzy. By itself, it isn’t as tasty as its spring counterpart (imagine tofu with a slight mushroom flavor). However, the advantages the giant puffballs do have are that they go well with just about anything and they’re easy to find.
Some puffballs reach up to a 4-foot circumference. At that size, you can’t miss them. Most are a little smaller, ranging from large softball to soccer ball size, which are still hard to miss in the middle of the woods. Unlike morels, the giant puffball doesn’t have a poisonous look-alike which makes hunting them safer.
A ripe puffball will be white, round and firm. Once they get soft and brown they’re full of spores and not edible. A ripe one will be firm, but not hard. Tapping it on the outside should produce a hollow, drum-like sound. That demonstrates the inside is a consistent, soft fruit.
While some giant puffballs looks as though they could feed a family of six for a month, they shrink to one-third to one-fourth their original size when cooked.
The advantage to cooking giant puffballs is that they go with practically anything. While tomatoes or sweet corn are tasty treats by themselves, giant puffballs solo don’t taste like much of anything. They have a mild, earthy flavor. What puffballs do well is pick up flavors from accompanying ingredients.
Puffballs go well in soups and stews, omelets and even go well in a saute.
My preference is to make a soup. When the cool fall weather sets in, a hearty soup hits the spot. In the August heat, a warm soup doesn’t seem quite as appealing. I slice the fleshy mushroom into one-half to three-quarter-inch cubes. The slices seem large, but cook down to bite-size portions. Peeling off the skin is recommended. That part of the mushroom is usually dirty and the puffball gets mushy if you wash it before cooking it. Look for brown or yellow spots and cut them out. Those are spores which don’t make good eating.
I made a saute with butter, then added sliced onions, sliced cayenne peppers with a pinch of minced garlic and the diced mushrooms. The mushrooms originally piled higher than the skillet but cooked into a manageable size and browned nicely. Each piece was sweet, with a hot aftertaste. Aside from a mild, earthy flavor, each piece of mushroom tasted like the ingredients they were cooked with.
In making a soup, I like to add crushed rosemary because it goes well with earthy flavors like the mushrooms. The recipe I used was something I made up last year to quickly make use of a large batch of giant puffballs I came across while hiking. When it comes to giant puffballs, feel free to improvise. Each ingredient gives the puffball life. Most of the ingredients I like to use are more subtle complementary flavors instead of strong, over powering ingredients.
I’ll be the first to admit there are better ingredients to build a meal around — especially this time of year. However, not all ingredients provide the thrill of the search and pride of a massive find.
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