Sprouted & Roasted Olive Oil Almonds

If you’ve never had a sprouted almond, you are in for a treat even before you turn your oven on for this recipe.  Take dry, raw almonds, cover with twice as much water as you have almonds, and let it soak for four hours or overnight.  The almonds will go from being slightly chewy and wrinkled, and grow to almost twice their size:  moist, crisp and immensely satisfying to eat.

You can stop there, refrigerate your almonds, and snack on them until they are gone.

Or… You can add 4 cups of fresh, cold water for every cup of sprouted almonds, spin them in your blender, strain the almonds, and with a little effort, you have yourself a liter of almond milk, plus almond meat that you can sprinkle over salads, put in bread, use in muffins or as a meat substitute.  This almond milk has none of the preservatives or additives you’ll get in your liter of store-bought almond milk, and you’ll be patting yourself on the back about how easy it is.  It’s a revelation.  And so delicious.

But then, you can take these almonds one step further, and you really should.  The thing is: when you combine plump, crisp sprouted almonds with a little olive oil, a little salt and a hot oven, you arrive at a flavor that is unbelievable addictive.

When I first made these, using local Sicilian olive oil and almonds,  at a Yoga & Food Retreat near Scopello, Sicily this summer, one of the yogis asked: “what kind of magic did you use on these?”, as the entire bowl disappeared into mouths around the table.

These are perfect as an appetizer, a little snack, sprinkled over morning oatmeal, or yogurt, or on top of salad.  You won’t be able to keep a batch around for long because nobody can keep their hands off of them, but it doesn’t matter.  They are so easy to make that you can just get another batch rolling and your back in business in no time.

Up close & personal

Sprouted & Roasted Olive Oil Almonds

1 cup of raw almonds
2 cups of water
1-2 teaspoons of olive oil
1/2 teaspoon course sea salt

Soak the raw almonds in the water for 4 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 175°C/350°F.

Drain the water and return the almonds to a bowl.  Add the olive oil and salt and toss to combine.  Spread the almonds in an even layer across a parchment covered baking pan.  Bake 15-20 minutes until the almonds are fragrant and roasted.  You can pull one out and cut it in half to check:  you want the internal color to be a light golden brown and the outside to have darkened slightly.  Allow the almonds to cool for 5 minutes or so before serving as they’ll be crisper when cooled.  Serve warm or at room temperature.

Option:  add minced fresh rosemary into the mix – the fragrance and flavor are lovely.

Makes 1 heaping cup/ 250ml.

Forest Lamb Mushroom Chili / Lampaankääpa-chilikeitto with Cornbread

A discussion around what exactly is “real chili” can turn quickly into a heated debate among those who take their chili seriously.  The recipe I’m about to give you may raise the eyebrows of those in the strictly beef and/or bean crowd since the main source of protein here comes from mushrooms, but please read on.

At first I was afraid this may be a recipe designed just for Finns, as the first name in English name I came across for Lampaankääpä, “terrestrial polypore fungus” doesn’t sound very appetizing, and, according to Wikipedia’s entry for Albatrellus ovinus, it’s “edible and sold commercially in Finland”, but doesn’t mention any other locations.  I began to wonder: anybody out there not from Finland and still picking and enjoying this fine mushroom?

Fortunately, further research yielded both a more appealing English name:  Forest Lamb Mushroom.  Now that makes a lot more sense, and gives nod to the Finnish name using the Finnish word for sheep “Lammas”as well as the Latin “ovinus” from “ovis” meaning sheep.

And if this all getting too detailed for you, bear with me here, check out the video above (in Finnish) and know that this fine mushroom, with a distant resemblance to the back of a white, fluffy, woolly sheep, , is not only delicious and versatile, it’s extremely easy to recognize, grows across Europe and North America, and we are having a bumper crop here in Finland this year.  A weekend visit to Sipoonkorpi, the national park area east of Helsinki, yielded far more of these than I cared to bring home; I packed several kilos worth in my basket and left the rest for other mushroom hunters sure to come along behind me.

A note to all of you mushroom hunters around the world who are reading this and wondering if you should bother, give it a try!  Every site I came across mentioned that it’s eaten in Finland.  The reference was so unusually specific that I am still wondering if any other nationality has embraced it as edible.  Let me know!

Forest Lamb Mushroom, Lampaankääpä, Albatrellus ovinus

This is a firm, clean mushroom.  They have a smooth, white to light brown top, dry to the touch, with dips and curves.  They stand close to the ground on a very short step, quite often overlapping with each other.  The underside has very fine, dense, pure white spores. When you find them, as always, check for worms while you are in the forest and leave the infested parts behind.  While usually pure white when you pick them, these mushrooms turn yellow when cooked.  Once home, you can fry them up in a pan like you would beef patties; rinse under water, dip in flour, then egg, then a flour mixture seasoned with parmesan, salt, pepper and oregano and fry in butter, or, you can use them as a meat replacement in chili.

What?!?  Chili?  Well…I’ve been wanting something with a warm, spicy kick to go along with the cooling weather.  I’m a big fan of chili, find myself consuming less & less meat these days, and didn’t have any beans in the house.  I was staring at the big pile of Forest Lamb Mushroom aka Lampaankääpä in my refrigerator and I realized that it would serve as a fine substitute for meat.

You could add beans to this as well, and I may do that next time.  There is a long-standing argument among chili aficionados as to whether “real” chili contains beans at all or meat at all.  There are strong advocates in both the beef only camp and the beans only camp, and a long line of people who combine the two as well as advocates of White Chili made with chicken and white beans.  Some wonder about the use of tomatoes, saying it has no place there, while others wouldn’t dream of making chili without it.  The bottom line, I would say, is that the best thing you can do with a pot of chili is make it your own.  If you love beans, toss them in.  If you have a sweet pepper/paprika that needs a home, dice it and toss it in.  Would you like to add corn?  Great idea.  And so the story goes.  In fact, if I’d been facing down a plate of porcini/herkkutatti, they would have found a welcome place in this chili as well.  But given the abundance of Lampaankääpä in every forest I’ve walked in during the last couple of weeks, I suggest you start your Mushroom Chili adventure with this.  Enjoy!

To serve with it, I highly recommend you make this cornbread.  Get your chili simmering in the pot, mix together your cornbread and get that in the oven, and you’ll be sitting at a table, surrounded by a mouth-watering, fragrant meal, in about 40 minutes.

Forest Lamb Mushroom Chili / Lampaankääpä-chilikeitto with Cornbread

A few notes before you begin:

• You can substitute other, meaty mushrooms for the Forest Sheep Mushroom:  Chantarelles (Kantarelli), Hedgehogs (Vaaleaorakas), Porcini (Herkkutatti) and Portobello would all work here.
• Adjust the amount of chili to your liking.  I like it spicy, so I used 1.5 teaspoons of cayenne.
• If you have a can or box of pre-cooked kidney beans, black beans, or white beans, by all means add them.  Next time I make this, I will definitely include beans.
• Other vegetables I’d suggest here are zucchini (kesäkurpitsa) and cauliflower (kukkakaali).

Forest Lamb Mushroom Chili / Lampaankääpä-chilikeitto

3 tablespoons vegetable oil
400g / 1 pound Forest Lamb Mushroom / Lampaankääpä, diced
1 large onion, diced small
1 stalk celery, diced
1 large carrot, peeled and diced
2 large garlic cloves, minced
2 teaspoons salt
1 – 1.5 teaspoons ground cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon ground coriander
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
650 g / two cans tomato sauce

Heat the vegetable oil of your choice in a heavy-bottomed pot (don’t use unlined cast-iron as it will react with the tomatoes).  Add the mushrooms, onion, celery and carrots and cook at medium low heat for 5 minutes, until the onions are soft and translucent.  Add the remaining ingredients and stir well to combine.  Increase the temperature and bring the mixture to a boil.  Reduce the heat to low, and cover the pot.  Allow the chili to simmer for 30 minutes.  Serve; with shredded cheese if desired.

Serves 4-6.  Reheats and freezes well.  Serve with Fresh Cornbread 

Dusky Wax Cap Coconut Chili Soup / Mustavahakas Kokos Chili Keitto with Black Sesame Sourdough Bread

Oh, what a mushroom season this has been!  And oh, how I love heading deep into the woods, basket in hand, searching for edible mushrooms.  For those of you who haven’t yet been caught by the fever of finding edible mushrooms, you may think it crazy, but for those of you whose baskets and jars and freezers and spare containers are slowly, steadily and repeatedly filling with mushrooms, you’ll understand the joy of coming across a mushroom that you’ve seen pictures of, wondered about, and perhaps picked once or twice in the forest, only to toss it away again, because you “weren’t 100% sure”.  Or of finding a much-loved mushroom once again:  nothing beats the thrill of the first flush of boletus edulis in the dim light of the shady forest, standing proudly at the foot of a pine or fir, or spotting the unmistakable gold of chanterelle out of the corner of your eye against the dark green moss of the forest floor, the first mushrooms a new season.

New to me this year, Mustavahakas (Finnish) or Dusky Wax Cap Mushrooms, Hygrophorus Camarophyllus, is the black tie dresser of the mushroom world.  It has an elegant, dark gray/brown cap, a clean natural  white undercap with elegant, waxy, sturdy, curved, gills and a slender, strong gray stem.  Once you’ve seen one, you will always know them, though it’s easy to miss them at first in the autumn forest among fallen leaves and debris, since they sit close to the grown, the dark heads just above forest floor.  They have a mild pleasant smell, reminiscent of honey, and the flavor is excellent.  They are considered to be a three-star mushroom, right up there with porcini for flavor.  I found mine growing in a mixed forest filled with fir, pine and birch, in the center of a mossy patch not too far from a patch of yellow foot chanterelles (suppilovahvero).  They are a fall mushroom in Finland, Scandinavia and Russia, with a growth season from the end of August through October.  In the US they are found in northern North America.  If you know of them growing in other parts of the world, please let me know!

Mustavahakas, Dusky Wax Cap, Hygrophorus Camarophyllus

I didn’t find many out on my last trek: just under 1/2 liter of good ones, but enough to fry up in the pan and create a soup.  I left a portion of them behind in the woods since the worms had found them before I did, so slice them completely in half as you pick them so you know which to bring home and which to leave behind; the worms tend to get there early.  If you are lucky enough to find a lot of them, they freeze well.  Fry them in a dry pan over medium heat until they release their juice, and then store them in a labeled plastic bag or container.

So how to cook them?  I’d read somewhere that they suit Asian recipes well, so I decided to make a nice soup for lunch.

I fried the mushrooms first and salted them lightly so I could taste them before adding them to the soup. The flavor reminded me a bit of the way oyster sauce smells, and the scent that came off as I cooked them was that of raw honey.  This soup uses simple ingredients to create a warming soup with fiery chili undertones that is really satisfying.  I give a range for the amount of chili as I found I made it a bit too fiery at first, and ended up removing some of the liquid before adding the coconut milk.  I hoping to find more of this beauties on my next trip out – I am thinking they’d be great in a curry stir fry over steamed brown rice.

If you don’t have Dusky Wax Caps anywhere near you, you could substitute store-bought Shitakes or Matsutakes for this recipe.

Dusky Wax Cap Coconut Chili Soup – Mustavahakas Kokos Chili Keitto

Dusky Wax Cap Coconut Chili Soup

2 cups / 1/2 liter fresh waxy cap mushrooms
2 tablespoons + 2 tablespoons sesame oil
1/2 + 1 teaspoon salt
1/2 yellow onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
2 carrots, sliced into thin circles
1 cup / 2.5 dl thinly sliced white cabbage
1 – 2 teaspoons red chili pepper, depending on how spicy you like it
3 cups / 750 ml water
1 tablespoon soy sauce, preferably Tamari
2 teaspoons of oyster sauce; optional, but adds a nice extra depth to this soup
1 tablespoon of chopped chives
1 tablespoon of chopped parsley
1 cup / 250 ml coconut milk
1/2 cup / 3/4 dl of small egg noodles, pasta, or rice noodles (I used mini bow tie pasta)

In a heavy-bottomed, medium-sized pot, heat 2 tablespoons of sesame oil, then add the mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms release most of their liquid and are cooked through, about 5 minutes.  Add 1/2 teaspoon of salt.  Pour the mushrooms onto a plate and set aside; set the pot back on the stove.

To the pot, add 2 tablespoons of sesame oil and the onion.  Saute the onion until it is slightly translucent and tender, 2-3 minutes.  Add the garlic, carrots, cabbage and pepper, stir well, and allow to cook for another five minutes.  Add the water, soy sauce and oyster sauce, and allow the mixture to cook for 10 minutes.  Add the chives, parsley and coconut milk, stir well, and bring back to a boil.  Add the pasta/noodles and cook them in the pot per manufacturers instructions or until they are al dente.  Taste and add salt & pepper if needed.  Pour into bowls and serve.

Serves 4.