Black Pepper Skate, Morels and Cilantro

At this point, I must be the unofficial morel dork of the interweb.  This is my 30 millionth post on morels and yet only my first of 2007.

While writing this post about a recent skate dish I made, I realized that while I continue to obsess with morels each and every Spring, I've only scratched the surface on morel dorkiness.

For instance, I'd love to head out to Oregon or somewhere dedicated to morel excellence and immerse myself in morel cultivation. I also want to go on a morel hunt.   

I picture weeding through damp misty forests, wearing camouflage and maybe night vision headgear.  I'd be carrying an official looking camo bag that would be stocked with important hunting tools - a bottle of Oregon Pinot, proper stem wear, a small sterno, a little saucepan, salt, pepper, a lemon, forks and a corkscrew that can double as a weapon should we encounter any drunken shitake hunting hooligans.

My morel hunting guide stops in the middle of his tracks and sniffs the air, dramatically.  The birds stop chirping and all goes quite.   I look down and see morels growing near an old tree.  Morel man teaches me a few picking techniques and we gather the pinecomb beauties.  They are plump and beautiful - a few little baby blond morels, a few pimp daddie, jumbo black morels are also in the mix.  We take them down to a local stream and I just barely rinse them, removing any sand.  I dry them thoroughly in the sun as we crack the Pinot.  I clink glasses with the morel hunter and.. HEY....WAIT A MINUTE..  At this point, I realize my morel hunter should now be a female.  (She's super hot, obviously, and wearing a hot camo mini skirt...ok, that's better).  We cheers morels and the genius of her camouflage high heels and begin to fire up the sterno. 

I saute the morels in butter on slow heat with salt and pepper, then add a squeeze of lemon juice after a few minutes.  We then eat the morels straight from the pan, enjoying the efforts of my morel hunters' genius (and crazy hottness).  She tells me my passion for morels is inspiring and we kiss passionately, but unfortunately my camo face paint smudges all over her and freaks us both out a bit.

Right. 

So, this needs to happen.  Hot morel hunters from Oregon with a passion for camo and Pinot should email me immediately to arrange a visit.

Until someone convinces me otherwise, I am fully committed to poaching morels per my usual method.  For this dish, I pair the beauties with the richness of skate.  I firmly believe that morels should not compete with many flavors, so I simply sauteed the skate in a bit of leftover pancetta drippings from a previous course, enhanced by only black pepper, salt and a squeeze of lemon juice before removing from the pan.  Believe it or not, I think the fresh burst of cilantro in this dish is pretty special.  Certainly it needs to be used sparingly with morels, but just a few leaves accent the richness of the flavors nicely.

Comments

[elizabeth]

I read this post very late at night. Then I had dreams about hunting for morels. Maybe I should see someone about this. ...it's just that I really, really like mushrooms.
Anyway, I'm pretty excited about trying this recipe.