Morel Risotto

Wild morel mushrooms grow all over north America in the spring months, but most prevalently around the Great Lakes region. They are truly one of our great regional delicacies. Although most people are familiar with bagged, wickedly expensive dried morels, freshly foraged morels can be purchased at gourmet stores, farmer's markets, and Co-ops while they are in season, and some lucky people can find whole patches of morels in the woods near their own home.

I bought a half pound of gorgeous fresh morels from Pam, one of our "neighbor vendors" at the Mill City Farmer's Market. Each week at the market, she arrives loaded down with crates and cases of fresh produce from her own farm, and from her neighbors' farms in southeast Minnesota. Since Pam is one of the managers of the Southeastern Minnesota Food Network (SMFM), a group of farms that came together in order to ship and distribute their goods collectively, she often has Minnesota seasonal vegetables a little earlier than the farms closer to the Twin Cities. Lately, Pam's been selling out of fresh asparagus, watercress, and ramps at the market. She also sells bread and cheeses made on her own farm, named Prairie Hollow.

After I brought the morels home, I laid them all out to admire their different shapes and sizes. Morels are hollow inside, and sometimes they contain dirt or insects, so I split each mushroom open to inspect it. As you can see, these mushrooms turned out to be very clean. After splitting the morels I sliced them very thinly, width-wise, separated the stems, and saved them.

To make a good risotto, start with a good stock. I made a stock out of a meaty sage-roasted chicken carcass, and added the morel stems, onions, and sea salt for flavor. For a vegetarian risotto, use a mushroom-based stock. Stock is easy to prepare while doing other kitchen tasks; it only takes a few moments of attention. I vastly prefer homemade stock to store-bought stock for all cooking, and it is much more economical.

For the Morel Risotto:

Morels:
1/2 lb morel mushrooms, cleaned and sliced
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 cup shallot
1 garlic clove, minced

Rice:
7 cups stock, homemade if possible (you may not use all of the stock)
2 tablespoons butter
1 1/2 cups Arborio rice
1/2 cup white wine
Parmesan, or other good grating cheese
sea salt and fresh cracked pepper

Begin by cooking the morels in a wide chef's pan with a thick bottom: heat the butter and oil over medium heat, add the shallot and cook until the shallot is transparent but not browned, stirring frequently. Increase the heat and add the morels, saute until the mushrooms are just beginning to brown around the edges. Add the garlic and a generous pinch of sea salt and cook 1 minute. remove the mushroom mixture from the pan and reserve. Meanwhile, bring the 7 cups stock to a simmer and keep hot while you make the risotto.

For the rice: in the same pan, melt the 2 tablespoons butter. Add the rice and stir to coat all the grains. Cook the rice, stirring, one or two minutes. Add the wine and simmer until it's completely absorbed by the rice. Add 2 cups of the hot stock, cover the pan, and simmer until it's completely absorbed.

Now add the stock 1/2 cup at a time and continue to stir the risotto until each addition is completely absorbed. After 3 additions of stock, add the reserved morel mushrooms to the risotto. Continue to add the stock 1/2 cup at a time and stir until completely absorbed. The risotto rice is cooked when it yields to the bite but is not mushy, and there is no excess liquid in the pan. Season to taste with salt and fresh pepper, stir in grated Parmesan, and serve immediately in heated bowls. Serves 4.

A morel risotto is nice when served with a springtime green salad or roasted or grilled asparagus, and a glass of the same wine used in the risotto.

For more information about foraging and cooking with morel mushrooms, check out a fun site: The Great Morel Homepage

The Urban Garden: You Can Grow That Here? Part One

I am new to Nicollet Island, the only inhabited island on the Mississippi River. Every day, I step out onto my front porch and feel like I've arrived in paradise. I can hear songbirds and the clucking of chickens, and the occasional sound of a car. More likely, a scooter or bicycle may pass me by as I breathe in the springtime scents of flowing fresh water and growing plants. Brick streets and flower gardens surround historic Victorian-era houses, just steps away from the steep riverbanks of the Mississippi. Many folks like to bike or stroll around Nicollet Island, and it isn't unusual to see someone stop and snap a spontaneous picture of one of the Island's gardens or the facade of a pretty Queen Anne home.

When the apple blossoms are falling in springtime, or the red and orange maple leaves in the fall, it's easy to become enchanted into thinking you've been transported into some remote New England village, lost in time, circa 1900. It's quiet, except for the sound of a woodpecker. A neighbor's laundry on a clothesline moves gently in the sunlight. A rooster crows. A man wearing overalls crosses the street with a wheelbarrow full of prairie flowers. But bucolic Nicollet Island is in the very heart of Minneapolis' urban center, separated from downtown Minneapolis only by the river, and joined to it by a train bridge and the Hennepin Avenue suspension bridge. The Merriam Street bridge, which is an old iron-beam link to the historic storefront area of St. Anthony Main, and the second span of the Hennepin Avenue bridge join Nicollet Island to Northeast Minneapolis. Many Twin Cities residents don't even know that the Island exists, or they only know about the school (DeLaSalle high school) or the inn and restaurant (Nicollet Island Inn) that are just off of the Hennepin Avenue bridge. As a result, the residential end of Nicollet Island is a peaceful oasis for its inhabitants, and for a few bikers and joggers in the know, who take advantage of the Island's trails and scenery.

Above, lilacs and apple trees in bloom on Nicollet Island.

It's a rare day when Phil and I don't thank our lucky stars that we ended up on Nicollet Island. All of our neighbors seem to be artists, with beautiful gardens and interesting hobbies like painting, playing the mandolin, and handspinning local wool yarn. Lots of them have hobbies that have to do with food, our favorite profession and pastime! We're suddenly surrounded by cheesemakers, homebrewers, venison sausage makers, shortbread bakers, wild rice gatherers, and foragers of local wildfoods. And of course, we're within a rooster's crow of the urban farm/potager/heritage garden maintained by Peat Willcutt, Twin Cities local foods guru.

Right: Peat Willcutt transplants heirloom tomatoes and peppers into pots in his garden.

"Take all of these peonies, I want to get rid of them so I can grow peppers there," Peat told me, as I was transplanting some perennial plants from his garden to my own. On a small urban plot, Peat grows innumerable food crops, as well as keeping chickens, geese, ducks, quail, and rabbits, and he's giving up the ornamental plants in order to have more space for food crops. Many of the plants are heritage varieties, or plants suited to our northern, "zone 4" gardening year. Despite the cold winters, Peat successfully grows many plants out-of-zone. Due to the urban "heat bubble" phenomenon, many plants flourish here during the summers, and with good husbandry, they can overwinter successfully. When I asked Peat for a list of all of the food crops in his garden, he sat down and made a list of the fruit plants. As for the vegetables, for one thing, it may take him several sessions to list them, and for another thing, he's not done planting this year's crop yet!
Above, Peat & Ben's pet dove, Fatima, perches on the handle of Peat's watering can while he tends his Nicollet Island potager.

I will return to Peat's garden throughout the growing year to describe his farming practices, the plants, and the harvests, but what follows is a list (perhaps incomplete) of Willcutt's fruit trees and plants, again raised in a very small urban plot:

Apricot, Manchurian apricot, Kieffer pear, Gala apple, "other" apple, Whitney crabapple, black currant, red currant, & white currant bushes, 5 gooseberry bushes of 3 varieties, Elberta peach, approximately 250 alpine strawberry plants, as well as everbearing and June bearing strawberries; red raspberries, yellow raspberries, blackberries, Nankin cherries, Sour cherries, snow cherries; "Alderman," "Superior," and Damsom plums, mulberries, rhubarb, medlar, quince, and jostaberry.