Creamy Morels on Toast

Morels cooked in butter with bacon and onion, finished with melted Gruyère and cream, and piled onto toast. It belongs to the French morilles à la crème family. Hank Shaw calls his version “Morels Savoyard”, after the cheese-and-bacon cooking of the Savoie.

⚠ Cook morels through. They are poisonous raw.

Untested: I have not cooked this one yet. It is here because the Mushrooms dive needed it, and it is adapted from the source named in the Notes.

Ingredients

• 3 slices bacon, chopped
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 lb mushrooms (morels are best)
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 lb Gruyère, grated
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup sour cream or heavy cream
• 1/4 cup chopped parsley
• Thick slices of good bread, toasted

Directions

Key ingredients

Black Pepper

1. Render the bacon. Cook the bacon until crisp, lift it out, and keep the fat in the pan.
2. Onion. Soften the onion in the bacon fat.
3. Mushrooms. Add the butter and the morels, halved lengthwise and cleaned. Cook until they have released their water and it has cooked away, and they are browned and cooked through.
4. Cream and cheese. Lower the heat, stir in the cream or sour cream, then the Gruyère, just until it melts. Return the bacon and stir in the parsley.
5. Serve. Spoon over hot toast.

Notes

Where this recipe came from Adapted from Hank Shaw’s “Creamy Mushrooms on Toast” (Morels Savoyard) at honest-food.net. The quantities are his, and he made it with morels.

Variations Without bacon: use more butter and add a finely chopped shallot. For the plain French version, morels, shallot, butter and cream: no checked source was found, so none is given here.

Companion recipes: Fried Morels, Dried Morel Butter.

About the photo The photo shows whole morels in a cream sauce, a restaurant plate with chicken, not morels on toast.