The April 2011 Issue of Cooking Light included a seemingly simple side dish using a type of mushroom I have yet to work with: Smoky Asparagus and Mushroom Saute. Morels are a wild mushroom; efforts to cultivate this mushroom have been mostly unsuccessful. Because they need to be “hunted” (those that collect morels are called mushroom hunters, I kid you not), they are super expensive– the market I went to was selling them for $69.99/lb., ouch. So this recipe can get pricey fast. I substituted in some hen of the woods (“Maitake”) mushrooms to save my wallet a bit. I ended up spending about $4 on the morels and a $1 and some change on the hen of the woods.
I had some left over asparagus from making the Orzo Risotto with Buttery Shrimp dish a few days ago so this dish was perfect to use ingredients I mostly had on hand.
Ingredients:
- 2 slices bacon
- 1 tablespoon butter (omit to make dairy free)
- 3 oz quartered fresh morel mushrooms
- 3 oz chopped hen of the woods
- 1 pound asparagus, cut into 1 inch pieces
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons chopped chives
The shape of morels allows it to hide some grit within the mushroom so submerge the morels in cold water, swish to remove the dirt, and gently pat dry before cooking.
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| Top: Morels Bottom: Hen of the woods |
Cook the bacon in a large saute pan over medium heat until crisp, about 2 minutes per side. I cut the bacon slices in half so they would fit in the pan better.
Remove bacon from pan and add to a paper towel to cool.
Add the butter to the drippings in the pan and swirl to coat. Add the mushrooms and cook for 4 minutes stirring occasionally to coat the mushrooms in the drippings.
 Add the asparagus pieces and saute for 5 minutes. Season with the salt and pepper.
When your bacon has cooled, crumble or roughly chop.
Remove the mushroom asparagus mixture from heat. Sprinkle with bacon and chives.
This was delicious! The bacon and mushrooms both gave a nice meaty flavor to the asparagus.
Man, that is delicious. I would tell you how delicious, but I am too busy eating it.
I did use smoked bacon, but I left the butter out. It doesn’t need it, IMHO. Subbed in creminis for the other shrooms.
Of course, mine is extra super duper good, because I picked the asparagus minutes ago.
This looks amazing. I bet this taste great.
Oh I love Morels. They can be quite tricky to find though depending on where you live. Sometimes dried is the best you can get. This look marvelous.
No bacon for me, but I love the asparagus! 😀