Almond-crusted, Stuffed Shaggy Manes

This year's mushroom season has been scrawny due to the lack of precipitation. All of my favourite patches aren't even patchy with fungus. I suppose the lack of rain isn't so bad though, because I'm already drowning in readings so don't really have time to commit to a lot of hunting.

That being said, I did some major multitasking yesterday- went to school, worked on a paper, and as I walked toward the Student Union Building something very magical happened:

Shaggy manes! Many of them were slightly past prime, but since the patches (yes there were several!!) were so large, I was able to haul over 5 pounds of mushrooms.

These guys are the type that spoil very quickly so you've got to cook them the day you pick them unless harvested in the button stage. We cleaned 10 of them, stuffed them with fig goat cheese, and coated them in an almond crust. With a little bit of lemon and salt they were heaven in my mouth.


Stuffed Shag

Ingredients
10 shaggy mane mushrooms
1 small log fig goat cheese
1 egg
1/3 cup toasted almonds
1/3 cup cornmeal
2 tbsp oil or butter (earth balance works too)

Directions
Clean all the grit from the mushrooms- this may require peeling them. Remove the stem which you may reserve for mushroom stock or just throw in the compost.

Grind the almonds very fine (I use a coffee grinder) and combine with the cornmeal.

Put a very small amount of goat cheese deep inside each cap- say 1 tsp or so. If you put too much it melts out the end and the flavour is overpowering.  Dredge the caps, one-by-one, in the egg and then the ground almonds and cornmeal.

Fry the mushrooms in the oil or butter at a fairly high heat until golden brown on all sides. Serve with lemon wedges and salt. These are pretty rich, so a side salad bodes well to finish the dish.