Morels, which are mushrooms from the Morchella family, are distinguished from other mushrooms by their spongy, honeycombed heads, a rather unsavoury looking mass of pleats and pits that actually contain vast amounts of savoury flavour. They grow in conifer forests across temperate regions, and the cool foothills of the Himalayas, in Himachal, Uttaranchal and Jammu & Kashmir are ideal territory for them. They grow best during the rains, but it can take months before enough can be collected, dried and brought to the market.
When morels are used in Kashmiri cooking they are usually diced and stir-fired with spices, and unlike with many other mushrooms, their taste is strong enough to handle this.
When you cook rice with shredded mushrooms and the water they are soaked in, each grain absorbs the flavour, and the savoury aroma of cooking rice is multiplied by the earthier aroma of the morels. It is an incredibly heady sensation. Paying the price that morels command in the market will never be easy, but the taste of this gucchi pulao in the memory might just make you do it.
Reviews
There are no reviews yet.