Asheville Mushroom Club

Blewit (or Mixed Mushroom) Tart

1 9 in. uncooked pie crust
4 T. butter
6 c. chopped fresh blewits or mixed wild and/or domestic mushrooms
3 lg. shallots, minced
2 eggs
1/2 c. half and half
1/4 c. dry white wine
1/2 c. freshly grated Parmesan cheese
1/2 tsp. coarse salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper

Preheat oven to 350. Bake crust about 12 minutes, or until golden. Set aside, keeping oven on. In a large skillet, melt butter over moderate heat. Add mushrooms and shallots and cook, stirring frequently, until mushrooms are browned, about 15 minutes. Transfer to pie crust. In a bowl, beat eggs with half and half, wine, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. Pour over mushrooms. Bake about 25 minutes or until almost set in the center. Remove from the oven and let stand 10 minutes before serving. Serves 6 - 8.

This recipe is featured in "Cooking with the Asheville Mushroom Club" cook book on page 133-134.

Club members have collected hundreds of recipes featuring local
and cultivated mushrooms to create a unique specialty cookbook.

Purchase your copy at club meetings for $10 or by ordering from Ken McGill, PO Box 182, Campobello, SC 29322 for $14.95.

Each month we'll be highlighting one mushroom that can be found in WNC during that current month. This is in an attempt to help members or guests learn our local mushrooms. It will also be noted whether the mushroom is edible, ill advised, or poisonous.

Clitocybe nuda ( aka blewits )

This a beautiful time of year to be out foraging. The trees still show some color and the sky is that incredible shade of blue that we only get this time of year. The crispness in the morning air reminds me that winter is rapidly approaching. Instinct, or is it a memory from a past existence, pushes me to get out and gather food for the hard times to come. Now that we have had a good rain and a few frosts it’s time to search for blewits. These delicious beauties usually don’t fruit until we’ve had some cold weather.

Look in the open woods, mulched areas and around blackberry canes for large (up to 6 inches or so) violet (when fresh, fading to grayish tan) caps. The gills and stem are violet tinged with buff or brown and it’s not unusual for the stem to be quite bulbous. The gills are crowded and notched. This is one that even more advanced mycophagists should get a spore print from just to rule out Cortinarius species. Blewit spores should be pinkish buff.

Take a large basket when you go as blewits can appear in great numbers. It’s not uncommon to return home with many pounds. I prefer to preserve this cooks’ treasure either dried or pressure canned. Thoroughly dried, bagged and stored in the freezer they can easily last the winter if not much longer. Pressure canning is (IMHO) the best way to preserve most mushrooms, especially those with gills and chanterelles. It’s a truly wonderful thing to be able to open a fragrant fresh smelling jar in the dead of winter.

Good hunting and good food,

Steve

Steve Peek, field mycologist and long standing member of the Asheville Mushroom Club