Chicken of the woods (and the mushroom+pork stroganoff)
Found these amazing specimens on our way to a mountain cabin. Decided to make a stroganoff type stew on a wood fired cauldron at the cabin. Bought some pork from a village butchers and cooked probably one of the best meals we've had in years. (Also, how do you order photos when posting on Reddit?)
Edit: here is the recipe
Render the fat of some slănină( salted and smoked pork belly fat, similar to Italian Guanciale), once crispy, take it out and eat it as a snack while cooking.
Sweat so e onions untill golden. Then add the meat, roughly chopped in cubes, and sear it in the mixture. Add in smoked paprika and/or cayenne powder.
At this point add crushed garlic to taste and let it fry a bit. Taking care not to burn it.
Once it's the meat starts to brown, add the chopped chicken of the woods and let it soften and release it's water. At this point it will start to thicken, so keep adding water slowly so it simmers but doesn't reach the consistency of a soup.
Once everything is cooked through, add the heavy cream(we used Gran Cucina cooking cream which is a mixture of cream and seed oils with a starch thickener, so if using straight cream, maybe add some cornstarch instead), salt and pepper to taste, and more garlic if you like it more garlicky. Simmer the whole mixture for a few minutes
One thing we miss because we couldn't find any is some fresh chopped parsley leaves at the very end.
Serve with polenta or homemade bread.
Can't give you quantities as we just winged it. Note: the fire under the cauldron needs to be roaring either constant flames to keep both the bottom and sides of the cauldron really hot, as you would a wok, and stir constantly.