Here’s a New Year’s Eve resolution to consider: More recipes, less stuff. Any time we ring in the New Year or look to celebrate at an event in our Wisconsin farmstead kitchen, we love to try winter comfort food recipes like this Wild Mushroom Tartine with an herb-infused cream sauce. We enjoyed this dish at SHED, a community-focused food enterprise in Healdsburg, California, when we visited Sonoma County this past fall and lucky for us, Chef Bryan Oliver was willing to share it.
While my husband, photographer John Ivanko, and I and have always loved to travel, we’ve realized the best souvenir is a recipe from a great road trip meal. Recreating flavors like this tartine quickly transport us back to a treasured time and place. I recall vividly the sun-drenched upper room at SHED where we dined, the 2015 Dark Horse Truett-Hurst wine with aromatics of dark currents and mocha paired with the tartine and, most importantly, the inspiring, sustainability-minded people we met that day in this community, including Paul Dolan, winery owner and president of the Demeter Association, a leading non-profit championing biodynamic practices to heal the planet through agriculture.
“I could quickly see and taste the difference in the quality of the fruit and the wine once we went organic and that continues to inspire my quest to improve wine quality through better farming practices,” shares Paul Dolan, a fourth-generation California farmer and vintner. Dolan is the first to successfully bring the “triple bottom line” approach to wineries, creating a business that is environmentally sound, socially just and economically viable.
“On this journey, I quickly realized how damaging chemicals are on the biological life of our soil, elements which eventually gets washed downstream and affect the health of our waterways,” adds Dolan.
You can see Dolan’s commitment to clean water when you visit Truett-Hurst winery just outside of Healdsburg. Relax and sample a glass of their award-winning Zinfandel while lounging in a fire truck red Adirondack chair nestled right on the rushing banks of Dry Creek. Truett-Hurst serves as a leader in the Dry Creek Habitat Enhancement Project, a partnership project that creates backwater features with large, woody debris to create slow moving pools and provide refuge for juvenile water steelhead and salmon.
Committed to biodynamic growing practices that celebrate Mother Nature’s diversity, you’ll also see native birds, butterflies and beneficial insects flying between the twisted old olive trees and habitat gardens on the vineyard’s 26 acres while goats, chickens and sheep add to the natural cycle.
A “tartine” may sound fancy, but it literally means “slice of bread” in French. You’ll see the term in recipes like this one to describe an open-faced sandwich that really spotlights the quality and flavor of the toppings.
For this recipe, feel free to serve it on slices of toasted bread for a meal or use smaller, baguette-sized slices for an easy appetizer. Pair it with SHED’s Black Butsu Squash Soup and a salad with Vinaigrette Dressing recipe from Jordan Winery and you will bring a full menu of flavors of Healdsburg, California directly to your winter homestead, even if the snow is falling outside!
Wild Mushroom Tartine with Pickled Huckleberries
Courtesy of Chef Bryan Oliver, SHED, Healdsburg, California
Serves: 6
Ingredients:
Mushroom Cream:
• 3 shallots, sliced thin
• ¼ pound crimini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced thin
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ teaspoon black pepper
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
• ½ cup cream
Mushroom Topping:
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• ½ pound wild chanterelle mushrooms, cleaned and cut in half
• 3 shallots, sliced thin
• 1/4 bunch thyme
• 1 loaf good-quality bread, cut into six thick slices (save the ends for croutons or breadcrumbs!)
• 2 tablespoons butter
Garnish
Pickled berries (Chef Oliver makes pickled huckleberries in the summertime, but store-bought elderberries, huckleberries, or blueberries are all fine)
1 cup garden herbs (Chef Oliver uses chervil, tarragon, fennel, parsley, rosemary, and thyme)
Directions:
Mushroom cream:
1. Cook shallots and mushrooms with salt and pepper in olive oil on low heat until shallots are translucent, stirring frequently.
2. Add thyme and cream and bring to a simmer until mushrooms and shallots are soft.
3. Puree in a blender until smooth.
Mushrooms
1. Heat olive oil in cast iron pan over high heat. Add chanterelles and shallots.
2. Roast briefly and add whole thyme branches.
3. Continue roasting until chanterelles are cooked to your liking.
4. Toast sliced bread with butter in a pan on stovetop or in an oven.
To assemble:
1. Smear toasted bread with mushroom cream.
2. Spread the chanterelles and shallots evenly over each slice.
3. Top with pickled berries and herbs.
Lisa Kivirist, with her husband, John D. Ivanko, a photographer and drone pilot, have co-authored Rural Renaissance, Homemade for Sale, the award-winning ECOpreneuring and Farmstead Chef cookbook along with operating Inn Serendipity B&B and Farm, completely powered by renewable energy. Kivirist also authored Soil Sisters. As a writer, Kivirist contributes to MOTHER EARTH NEWS, most recently, Living with Renewable Energy Systems: Wind and Solar and 9 Strategies for Self-Sufficient Living. They live on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin with their son, Liam, and millions of ladybugs.
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