Wild Mushroom Tuna Stroganoff

Despite being perilously low, my dried morel reserve has been calling my name. So I broke and whipped up what has quickly become my favourite way to exploit the hardy morel: Tuna stroganoff.

The genesis of this recipe has been from a very quick, pre-fab type of deal to what it is today, a still quite quick, culinary experience. Where once there was a canned tuna and a can of Campbell's mushroom soup there are now all fresh ingredients and dried wild mushrooms.

--- The Recipe ---

The Ingredients:

- Dried Yellow Morels..... Couple big ones

- Dried Honey Mushrooms... A handful

- Cream (15%)............. 1 cup

- Chicken Stock........... 1 cup

- Cooking Oil............. 1 tbsp

- Green Onions............ 2

- Garlic.................. 2 or 3 cloves

- Thyme................... 1 tsp

- Tuna.................... Steak for two (or 1 can)

- Zucchini................ 1

- Flour................... 1 tbsp

- Yoghurt (2%)............ 2 or 3 dollops

- Salt to taste

- Pasta

- (optional) Lemon Zest... 1 good shot

- (optional) Chili........ 1

The Process:

Combine the cream and the stock in bowl and heat until warm - not too hot. Crumble mushrooms into the cream mixture and let them rehydrate (10 mins. or so). Finely chop the onions and garlic but give the zucchinis some thickness.

Fry the onions (and optional chili) in the oil. Skim the mushrooms out of the mixture (do not discard), squeeze out excess liquid and toss them in with the onions. Let cook for 5 min. on low heat. Add the garlic and thyme, then the cream mixture - careful, grit from mushrooms can settle at the bottom, that you can discard. Let reduce for 5 more minutes.

If using canned tuna, add that next. If using fresh tuna steak, coat in salt, pepper and thyme and fry in a separate pan. Add the flour to thicken the mixture followed by the zucchini. Cook til the zucchini is just tender, then slap in the yoghurt (and your optional lemon zest). Salt to taste and serve over pasta (with the tuna steak if you sprang for that).

You could go all morel with this dish or all honey. I use both because hey, why blow all my morels in one place? And the honeys add a rich mushroomy taste without edging out the morels. Unlike a lot of mushrooms, morels and honeys especially, are better cooked long and slow rather than quickly browned.

You could use fresh mushrooms instead of the dried ones but remember you'll be adding a lot more moisture to the mix. The dried method is also the only possibility when combining the two varieties of mushroom since morels fruit in the Spring and honeys only come out in the Fall... Perfect for a mid-Winter supper.

Tip - Rehydrating dried mushrooms in cream and/or stock is a great way of infusing a little extra flavour.