Monday 7 September 2020

Scoffing ceps from the woods

It's been feeling all nice and Autumnal and its been damp for a few weeks, and so I went foraging with the dog and got lucky with the ceps - AKA Boletus Edulis - probably the best mushroom you can find in the woods - good firm texture, tasty, generally not maggoty AND they get quite big

Picture of a cep
Boletus Edulis (i.e. cep) on the tiger table

The one above is a decent size  - about 12 cm in height and nice and weighty in the hand

Here's on as it was found in the lovely earthy woods

Button cep in the woods

And another - Betty Pug is some way behind it. It's not that big.

Big cep


The shot below shows the rest of them back at the house on my dining table.
The bigger ones were a bit past it in places

A good haul - lots of ceps on the tiger table


A cute button cep

Picture of a cep

and another...

Picture of a cep

You can see, these have been gnawed by molluscs.

Picture of some cep mushrooms


And so to breakfast...
For this, I decided to use my hand-made kitchen knife, just cause I fancied it : )

Picture of a hand made knife

A thin slice through the cap shows the pores 


The two bigger ones had a few parts that were a bit past-it, so I cut off what I could and saved that for drying.

Chopping ceps

This looks like a lot, but once dried, it shrinks down to hardly anything.

Picture of some chopped cep mushrooms


The remaining fresh ones made up a decent amount

Picture of some cep mushrooms

This slice shows the solid meaty flesh and even texture through the bole

Picture of some cep mushrooms

And so knobs of butter went into the pan...

Butter in a pan

Followed by the chopped ceps.

Early stage of frying cep mushrooms

While that was frying, I chopped up a lovely olive bloomer with a bit of rye in it

Cutting olive bread

Slap on a bit of butter

Sliced olive bloomer (bread), buttered



Meanwhile, back at the pan, the ceps start to firm up as they cook and go a bit translucent. The caps also go darker

Early stage of frying cep mushrooms

Ceps caramalise well and they soon start to develop a lovely brown colour and smell amazing...

Frying cep mushrooms showing change in colour as they caramelise

Closer up

Frying cep mushrooms showing change in colour as they caramelise

A bit later again and they are browned evenly and ready to make the sauce with.

Frying cep mushrooms showing change in colour as they caramelise

For this, I used some chopped fresh thyme. Just the soft leaves from the tips of tender shoots

Chooping fresh thyme

I save the stalky bits for adding to other things

Chopping fresh thyme

Next, crushed and chopped garlic - just 3 cloves

Chopped garlic (raw)

Chopped parsley...

Chopped parsley

Slap it in along with a decent dollop or two of cream cheese.

Adding cream chees to frying ceps

Stir until salivating
I added a little milk to dilute the gloopy cream cheese a bit

Stirring mushroom sauce

mmm... 

Close up of creammy mushroom sauce

And there it was. Delicious!
I ate this outdoors in the garden as seemed befitting

Breakfast is served - creamed ceps on toast