I can’t express myself enough how happy I was when I saw chanterelle mushrooms in a Polish shop last week. I have been hunting, literally hunting for them for the past two years and haven’t seen them anywhere. I’m sure that if I looked in London I would have found them but since I live in a fairly small town without a proper food market, it simply wasn’t possible for me to get them.
In Polish simply called kurki, chanterelle mushrooms are one of my favourites. Even though they are not traditionally collected by mushroom pickers in my home village in Poland, they do have a very special place in Polish cuisine. Since I was a little girl I always used to go to the forest with my grandma to pick mushrooms. We would walk around for hours, filling our baskets with wild mushrooms. Oh, what a joy it is, finding a small mushroom hidden beneath a leaf!
In Poland, mushroom-picking is quite popular, especially in the areas with forests. Wild mushrooms, like I mentioned before, have a special place in traditional Polish cuisine. They can be eaten in a form of light, cream based sauce, served with bread or in a mushroom soup. There are many ways of preserving wild mushrooms in Poland, too. The most popular ones would be freezing, drying or pickling them. Frozen mushrooms can be later used for soups and sauces; dried are usually kept until Christmas Eve, when the 12-course dinner is traditionally served, all of the courses meatless (with an exception for fish) and with dried mushrooms as one of the key ingredients (barszcz, żurek z grzybami, groch z kapustą, uszka z grzybami – to name just a few).
I was overwhelmed with joy with my discovery of the chanterelle mushrooms in a Polish shop. I couldn’t wait to run home and cook them, in a creamy sauce, with fresh parsley and tagliatelle. And voila! Here is what I’ve created.
TAGLIATELLE WITH CHANTERELLE MUSHROOM
INGREDIENTS
200g chanterelle mushrooms
1 pack of tagliatelle
2-3 cloves of garlic
2-3 small shallots
bunch of fresh parsley
150ml double cream, room temperature
parmesan cheese
2 tbsp butter
freshly ground pepper
salt
HOW TO MAKE?
1. Wash the mushrooms. Since the chanterelle mushrooms are wild mushrooms picked in the forest, there can be some leaves stuck to them. Make sure not to soak the mushrooms for long, wash them quickly and pat dry if necessary. Cut them in chunks, small mushrooms you can leave whole.
2. Chop the onion and garlic finely.
3. Heat up a big frying pan (medium heat) with two tablespoons of butter. When the butter is melted and hot, throw the onion and garlic in, cook until slightly golden. Don’t burn the garlic! Garlic gets very bitter when it’s burnt.
4. Add the mushroom to the frying pan and cook for about 5-7 minutes, stirring from time to time.
5. Boil tagliatelle while the mushrooms are being cooked. It takes about 4-5 minutes to boil the pasta, so try to time your cooking accurately.
6. When the mushrooms are cooked, add the double cream. Make sure your double cream is at room temperature, otherwise it may curdle. Add salt, freshly ground pepper and chopped parsley. Cook for about 2-3 minutes, allowing all the flavours to mix well.
7. Add cooked and drained pasta to the frying pan, at this stage you can also add some grated parmesan cheese (you can also sprinkle parmesan over the pasta later, when served on a plate). Allow the sauce to cover the pasta, it should take less than a minute.
8. Serve immediately, sprinkling with some freshly chopped parsley on top.
Wersja polska przepisu, specjalnie dla polskich Czytelników ^^
Makaron tagliatelle z kurkami
Smacznego,
aho
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aho's homemade food 
Wow such beautiful mushrooms! I love mushrooms and am going to try this recipe, it sounds delicious.
Nice dish! I also cooked them few days ago :) and I stored some in jars with extra virgin olive oil, they will be good for winter :)
I love porcini mushrooms, but I love chanterelle the same too! :)
Wow that forest is beautiful !!!
Thanks ;)) It’s in my little village in Poland, where I grew up :)
I love forests. Are there any of forests in Poland ? I will google lol
There are quite a few big, old forests in Poland. The one in my post is a part of Puszcza Niepolomicka (Niepolomice Forest), beautiful and very old forest near Krakow, in the South of Poland. It used to be a popular hunting ground for the Polish royalty (Poland’s capitol used to be Krakow and that’s where the kings used to live), beginning in the 13th century.
Wow very interesting. I will definitely check that. Thanks so much for the info :)
no worries :)) Have you ever been to Poland?
No :( not yet. But i look forward to visit your country now ! The new countries i will visit in Europe next year are Austria & Italy, maybe Croatia !
Many*
This is one of my absolute favorite comfort food dishes. What beautiful mushrooms!
I love that dish, too. Although it’s a calorie-bomb haha I suppose it’s okay to treat myself sometimes. ^^
Completely worth every bite! :)
Moja rodzina uwielbia to danie. Dziękuję za przepis!
Jestes mistrzem ☺️
That is an incredible harvest–I’m envious! Chanterelles are always a special treat I grab when I’m out in the Pacific Northwest and they’re in season, but I’ve never had the chance to forage for them myself. Around here, it’s all about morels. :)
I grew up picking mushrooms hahah every summer/autumn I’d go to the forest with my grandma and look for wild mushrooms. Later, we would process them: some of the mushrooms would be made into a cream sauce, eaten immediately with some bread, some would be dried and kept for winter (most of them would be used to prepare a traditional Christmas Eve’s dinner), and some of them would be pickled.
It’s a whole long process hahah Try mushroom picking, if you ever get a chance. There is something incredibly rewarding in finding mushroom in the forest :)
The forest and mushrooms look amazing. Those are some giant mushrooms 😀.
Thanks! I can’t wait for the summer, love mushroom picking with my family ;)
[…] and dried mushrooms fill the house with a deep, forest aroma every time they are used for a soup, sauce or pierogi […]
my favourite pasta! I wanna eat this
this post really resonated with me as my Father who was born in Poland is now 91 and he is a mushroom picking fanatic! when he comes to visit here in the woods of Quebec, Canada he turns into a child on a treasure hunt.
I’m happy I could help bring some memories back :) I wrote a post on mushroom picking in Poland, you can show it to your Dad, there are plenty forest pictures there 😁 My family is a mushroom picking family, too! Pasting the link to the post below. Greetings from Poland! 😊
https://ahohomemadefood.com/2019/09/23/in-poland-autumn-is-for-mushrooms/