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Cèpes Jaunes

October 31, 2009
07:55 AM

When we told Dani and Serge, our friends from Normandy,who live just around the corner on the Rue del Catet, that we had had some success gathering cèpes, nothing would do them put to guide us up to a spot in the mountains over St. Chinian, to gather Cèpes Jaunes.
These they told us while not as good as the cèpes we had gathered, made very good eating.

First thing I had to do was look them up on the internet.
This was what we were after;
Suillus Luteus, (aka) Slippery jack, Butter mushroom, Brown-yellow boletus, (English); Nonette voilée, Bolet jaune, Cèpe jaune,(French)

-Is it any wonder the Irish and English are a little slow to gather mushrooms.
I mean which would you rather sink the teeth into a Slippery Jack or a Nonette Voilée

So off we headed, the four of us, on a complicated route to the hills above St. Chinian armed with baskets and clad in suitable clothing.
(I can tell you now that I will never ever reveal to anyone how to get there, as it was Dani and Serge made me wear a blindfold all the way, and I was driving)

Well they were as good as their word and we managed to gather about three kilos of this yellow version of the cepe.

The woods were also full of Arbutus, just in fruit ,and I ate a huge amount of them.
This tree, which managed to survive in Kilarney, is also known as the Strawberry tree, for obvious reasons.

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When we got back we did the customary and brought our spoils into the chemist.
Some promising pink monsters we had found he pooh poohed as being without culinary value but he sent out his approval, begrudgingly, of the Cèpe jaune

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But he was brought out of his lair in the back, whistling in admiration at Dani’s single Caesar mushroom.

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(not my photo)

Well having been meticulously tutored by Dani how to clean these yellow monsters we cooked them up in oil with a little roasted garlic and lashings of salt and pepper.

Not as tasty as our other cepes but still very good eating.

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