Fried Chanterelles

Name: Fried Chanterelles with Onion and Potatoes
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Fresh chanterelles 0.5 l jar; Onions 1–2; Potatoes 5–6; Vegetable oil 3–4 tbsp; Salt, ground black pepper to taste

☆ 4.6

50 mins

Fried chanterelles with onion and boiled potatoes: the mushrooms are sorted, washed and fried with onion over low heat for at least 15 minutes, then mixed with the potatoes. To be safe, you can boil the chanterelles for 10 minutes first; 50 minutes in total.

Fried chanterelles are the hit of mushroom season; I can’t remember a single year when we didn’t fry them. Boiled potatoes topped with fried chanterelles are an indescribable pleasure.

I wonder how many people, hearing the word “lisichka”, would picture the sly red animal with a fluffy tail from popular children’s fairy tales? The vast majority know that the lisichka is the chanterelle: a pale orange forest mushroom, unbelievably tasty, growing in our forests in abundance, whole fields of them.

For me, for instance, it brings to mind a bright green carpet of forest moss with orange chanterelle funnels poking out. The chanterelle (Latin Cantharellus cibarius) is an edible mushroom whose stem merges into the cap with no visible border. Its color ranges from pale yellow to deep orange.

The flesh is firm and fibrous, with a slightly tangy taste. It grows practically everywhere in temperate forests, most often in coniferous or mixed woods. The mushrooms come up in large groups, usually after heavy rain. Unfortunately, there are inedible and even poisonous look-alikes. Chanterelles are a valuable medicinal raw material, thanks to substances that are good for the liver and help fight internal parasites. They also contain plenty of amino acids and vitamins.

An important thing about chanterelles: they’re never wormy.

You can cook chanterelles almost any way: fry, boil, dry, pickle or salt them. But the tastiest are fried chanterelles. Especially chanterelles with onion and a few spices, or even none at all. Strictly speaking, you don’t even need to boil chanterelles first. But to be safe, they’re usually boiled briefly, just 15 minutes. Still, simply fried chanterelles are far tastier. Especially fried potatoes with mushrooms, chanterelles in this case. I learned as a kid that the tastiest thing is chanterelles with onion piled on boiled potatoes.

Fried chanterelles are the hit of mushroom season. I learned as a kid that the tastiest thing is fried chanterelles piled on potatoes.

Ingredients

2 servings

Fresh chanterelles 0.5 l jar
Onions 1–2
Potatoes 5–6
Vegetable oil 3–4 tbsp
Salt, ground black pepper to taste

Step-by-step recipe

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Preparing the mushrooms

To make fried chanterelles, you have to pick them in the forest or buy them at the market. I don’t know why, but when you go picking chanterelles, you measure them by the basket. And when you go buying them, you measure them by the jar.

Be sure to sort the chanterelles and clean off forest debris: pine needles, moss, leaves, twigs. Cover the chanterelles with plenty of cold water; it’s handy. The heavy debris sinks to the bottom, and you can pick out the leaves and needles by hand. Wash the chanterelles gently, cutting away any rotten bits.
To be safe, you can boil the mushrooms for 10 minutes in slightly acidulated water; then they won’t lose their gorgeous color when fried.

Frying with onion

Peel the onion and cut into strips. A little trick: I recommend cutting the strips lengthwise rather than across the onion. That way they stay whole while cooking.
Fry the sliced onion in vegetable oil until soft. There’s no need to overcook it or aim for a nice golden color, as most authors write. The taste of fried onion easily overpowers fresh chanterelles. You want the onion soft, sweet and just barely starting to color, not fried hard.

Add the boiled chanterelles to the onion, salt lightly and add just a little pepper.
Keep frying the onion and chanterelles over low heat, stirring constantly, for at least 15 minutes.
If you didn’t boil the chanterelles first, they’ll release a lot of liquid that needs to evaporate, or the onion and chanterelles will just stew instead of frying.

With potatoes

While the chanterelles fry, boil the coarsely cut potatoes in lightly salted water. As soon as the potatoes are done, drain.
Combine the potatoes and fried chanterelles in the skillet and stir.
Fry everything together for 1–2 minutes.

Serving

The fried chanterelles are ready. Put the potatoes and chanterelles on plates and eat right away, adding maybe just a slice of fresh bread.

Calories and macros

600 kcal

Serving ≈ 530 g

Protein12 g8% of kcal
Fat26 g42% of kcal
Carbs69 g50% of kcal

100 g113 kcalProtein 2.2 gFat 4.9 gCarbs 12.9 g

Calculated from the recipe ingredients, excluding salt and spices. Data: USDA and Matvaretabellen.

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To Get It Right

Acidulated water

Acidulated water for chanterelles is literally 1 tsp of vinegar per liter of water; for a big pot, 1–2 tbsp of distilled vinegar per 3–4 l. Some suggest lemon juice, but I use vinegar: lemons aren’t our fruit, they don’t grow here.

How much is a jar

At the market, chanterelles are sold by the jar. A half-liter jar holds about 250–300 g of mushrooms, just right for 2 servings with potatoes.

Instead of potatoes

Chanterelles with onion are great with young boiled potatoes and with couscous too: a reader suggested it, and it’s an excellent idea.

With sour cream or leek

At the end, you can add 2–3 tbsp of sour cream (30–45 g) to the fried chanterelles and heat for a couple of minutes.
Leek is delicious instead of regular onion.
A spoonful of butter at the very end adds aroma, but it’s better to fry in vegetable oil.

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Questions and answers

How long to fry chanterelles in a pan?

Boiled chanterelles are fried with onion over low heat for at least 15 minutes, stirring constantly. Then another 1–2 minutes together with the potatoes.

Do you need to boil chanterelles before frying?

Not necessarily. To be safe, they’re boiled for 10–15 minutes in acidulated water, which helps them keep their color. I usually don’t boil them; at most I pour boiling water over them for 10 minutes.

How long to fry raw chanterelles?

Longer than boiled ones: raw chanterelles release a lot of juice, and it has to evaporate first, or the mushrooms stew instead of frying. It takes about 25–30 minutes in total.

How do you know fried chanterelles are done?

The juice has fully evaporated, the mushrooms have shrunk, turned springy and browned slightly, and you can hear them sizzling in the oil.

How to fry frozen chanterelles?

Don’t thaw them: put them in a dry pan and cook off the water over medium heat. Then add the oil and onion and fry as you would fresh ones, about 15 minutes.

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