I met Connie Green through a mutual friend. I just knew her as a really interesting, funny woman who was a mushroom expert. I had no idea that almost every major restaurant in the Bay Area gets their mushrooms from Connie and that she got a big two page spread in Thomas Keller’s seminal The French Laundry Cookbook!
Connie recently gave me some Hen of the Woods mushrooms and naturally they were married with some beans!
Sauté onion and garlic in a little olive oil.
Wipe mushrooms with a damp paper towel . Break into pieces and add to the softened vegetables. After a few minutes add cooked beans (I used Red Nightfall) and heat through. When cooked, add some chopped cilantro and a dash of hot sauce. Naturally, I used Rio Fuego!
I dusted the mixture with some dry cheese and stuffed several tortillas.
Any meat lover would be happy with this. Beans, garlic and mushrooms have a natural affinity that’s hard to beat. They’re meaty and delicious. You can use any mushrooms you have available but try to at least mix some wild mushrooms to the mixture to keep things interesting.
Hens of the Woods are excellent mushrooms – i’m so lucky to have them in local supermarket and quite inexpensively. Here’s a good recipe from Marco Canora for Pan-Roasted Hens of the Woods http://nymag.com/nymetro/food/inseason/10093/index.html;
i myself recently roasted them with fingerlings and whole garlic cloves – very nice!
So when you say “dusted with some dry cheese”…what cheese do you mean by that?
Mushrooms and potatoes are another natural marriage. And I keep hearing such good things about Canora. Makes me wish I were in New York.
Dusted would be a light sprinkling of any dry cheese. I often use a dry goat cheese but a parmesan would be great as well.