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Monday, May 2, 2011

Out & About

You can have your morels and eat them, too

Posted by Charles Ferruzza on Mon, May 2, 2011 at 12:02 PM

A perfect lunch: tempura-battered fried morels -- with hot mustard sauce.
  • A perfect lunch: tempura-battered fried morels -- with hot mustard sauce.


Saturday was such a beautiful balmy day, Kansas City's City Market was extraordinarily busy with shoppers wandering through the stalls and looking at the array of merchandise -- a lot of potted plants were for sale that day, particularly fresh herbs and tomatoes. There wasn't much fresh produce yet, but the usual assortment of farmers were on hand selling honey, baked goods, spices and fresh flowers. And one vendor was offering, for $70 a pound, a pile of beautiful morel mushrooms.

The temptation was too difficult for one friend of mine to pass up.



Morel season isn't very long -- running, typically, from late April to mid-June in this region. They're heavenly in sauces, particularly in a Madeira wine reduction, poured over veal or even stuffed with sausage and fried. But after purchasing a small bag of morels for $15, my friend walked straight over to the Bo Lings restaurant at the City Market.

click to enlarge Theresa Ng in a pastry mood.
  • Theresa Ng in a pastry mood.
Since he's a regular customer there, he was greeted by restaurant co-owner Theresa Ng, who was standing on the outdoor patio passing out cake samples to people who passed by. As Fat City reported last week, the Ngs are going into the custom cake business. (I ate more than a few samples myself -- the chocolate was the best.)

My friend asked Theresa Ng if the kitchen would batter and fry up the morels for him. My jaw dropped when she agreed. "He's a longtime customer," she told me.

While my friend waited for the main event -- Ng soaked the morels in saltwater for 15 minutes before battering and frying them -- he ordered all kinds of other appetizers and sat, like a Ming Dynasty emperor, on the patio, sipping jasmine tea with his wife and waiting for his mushrooms. I stuck around, too, because I was eager to taste them myself. Finally, the plate arrived with a mound of beautifully golden fried morels: as light as a feather, slightly crispy and with that wonderful earthy aroma. I was sort of scandalized when he dipped the mushrooms into hot mustard sauce -- the fried morels were perfectly delicious naked -- but I tried it myself, and it wasn't too bad.

It crossed my mind to run over to the morel vendor and buy a bag for myself, but I had eaten too many cake samples and was too tired and lazy. Maybe next weekend.

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Please quit spamming this site.

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Posted by Dillo on 05/03/2011 at 5:45 AM

Interesting article! Best place to find coupons during holidays for free is printapons I would recommend them

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Posted by ermabetts on 05/02/2011 at 11:20 PM

I picked up a large/quartish sized container of beautiful ones at the Parkville market for a relatively cheap deal- $20. We dusted and sauteed them and made one hell of a pizza. Oh, the annual Morel Mushroom Festival is this weekend in Richmond, Mo. Looking forward to it, but will not be taking my credit card.....

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Posted by Zeemanb on 05/02/2011 at 1:44 PM

You know there's no place like drinking tea and chatting with old friends at the Bo Ling's Patio on a sunny Saturday at City Market! It's so good to feel the sun again ...Linda Rostenberg

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Posted by LaRosty on 05/02/2011 at 12:55 PM
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