Freshwater Feasts

By El Lower, Great Lakes Aquatic Nonindigenous Species Information System (GLANSIS) communications specialist

Late summer is a great time for foraging wild mushrooms, and as temperatures finally cool down in the evenings, it’s worth turning your oven on for this one-skillet supper. It’s been a great year for chanterelles here in Michigan, with abundant crops of both smooth chanterelles (Cantharellus lateritius) and the recently-identified ghost chanterelles (Cantherellus phasmatis) if you know where to look! If you’re short on chanterelles specifically, this recipe would work well with a number of other seasonal mushrooms: if you’re lucky enough to find oyster mushrooms, hedgehog mushrooms, or chicken of the woods, they’d be excellent alternatives. 

This French-inspired recipe combines chicken and mushrooms with new potatoes, a homemade herbes de provence blend, and dry vermouth (I use my own, made with foraged ingredients, based on forager Marie Viljoen’s recipe here), but any iteration of dry vermouth or even white wine will work perfectly. Enjoy this dish with a crisp green salad topped with seasonal fruits (one culinary tip: chanterelles smell a little like apricot, so stone fruit is a great choice as a compliment) and perhaps some of the remaining vermouth from the recipe with a twist of lemon over ice!

Roast chicken thighs with chanterelles

Ingredients:

• 4 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
• 1 lb new red-skinned potatoes, halved
• 12 oz (or as many as you were lucky enough to find!) chanterelle mushrooms, halved or quartered if large
• 1 onion, diced
• 3 garlic cloves, diced
• 4 Tbsp olive oil
• 4 oz dry or blanc vermouth, or white wine
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Kosher salt and black pepper (to taste)
• 2 Tbsp herbes de provence seasoning blend (a mix of dried herbs including rosemary, thyme, basil, marjoram, tarragon, parsley, and lavender flowers – exact ingredients and ratios will vary, and that’s okay! In a pinch you can substitute equal parts dried rosemary, thyme, and basil.)

Preparation:

1. Pre-heat your oven to 450 F. Meanwhile, heat a large cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat and add olive oil to the pan. 
2. Salt your chicken generously with kosher salt, then add the chicken, skin-side down, into the cast-iron skillet and sear it until the skin browns, about 5 minutes. Remove the chicken to a plate – you’ll add it back in later.
3. Add the onion and garlic to saute in the combined olive oil and chicken fat left in the pan and cook until translucent (about 5 minutes). Next, add the mushrooms and potatoes to the skillet to sear briefly, then add the vermouth, half the herbes de Provence spice mix, and lemon juice, and cook for another 5 minutes until the pan sauce is simmering.
4. Nestle the chicken back in among the garlic, onions, potatoes, mushrooms, and sauce; sprinkle everything with the remaining herbes de Provence. Transfer to the oven and roast, uncovered, until the potatoes are cooked through and chicken is fully cooked with crispy bronzed skin, 30 to 35 minutes. Bon appetit!