We’re supplying part of the prize for Peter’s Yard’s October competition. For a chance to win one of three sets of our dried wild mushrooms and some of their delicious Swedish crispbread, follow the link. Closing date is 31 October. Good luck!

The last of our popular Funghi Forays with lunch al fresco is taking place this Saturday 28 October, and is fully booked as all the other forays have been. We’ve been pleasantly surprised how many specimens we’ve been able to find to talk about and taste as it has been an exceedingly dry autumn and as we all know, mushrooms are thirsty little things! Dates for next year’s forays will be up on the website by the end of this year.

Our next tasting will be at the fantastic mmm….and glug… in the Grainger Market, Newcastle upon Tyne on Saturday 31 October from 12 noon till 3pm. We had a blast up there last year so we’re really looking forward to it. Do come and join us for wild mushroom toasties galore!

The fungal variety, obviously!

This is one of our favourite quick and easy recipes using a delicious autumn mushroom, the Hedgehog, called Taggsvamp in Sweden. Found on forest floors, or the edges of fields close to trees (especially beech), the Hedgehog mushroom (Hydnum repandum) is easy to spot with its wide brimmed creamy hat and the tiny ‘spikes’ underneath, often fruiting in a line. It can’t be mistaken for any other funghi and the only other ones in that family are also edible, just not as tasty, so it is classed as a beginner’s mushroom.

Once you’ve found your mushrooms, make sure you clean them before you put them in your basket. Cut the soily bit off the foot and brush off any other vegetation. When you get back home, place the whole hats in a pan and heat gently. Let the mushrooms absorb the liquid that is driven off during heating and when that process is complete, let them cool.

While they’re cooling, beat an egg and put some breadcumbs seasoned with salt and pepper on a plate. Other spices like paprika can be added to taste. Trim the foot off the hat so it’s nice and flat, then pat dry with kitchen paper. Melt a large knob of butter in a pan, then dip the hats first in the egg then in the breadcrumbs, and fry for around 10 minutes on low heat, turning once, until golden brown.  Serve with lemon juice, tartare sauce or whatever tickles your fancy. Smaklig måltid as the Swedes say!

It’s a joyous thing to go out into the fields and woods and come back with a basket of edible goodies, whether those are fungal or fruity! We get such a lot out of the time we spend in the forests picking, and are always delighted when people come out on forays with us to learn more about mushroom identification so they can then go out on their own. Without exception, all who have forayed with us over the years have been lovely, enthusiastic and interesting people, a pleasure to spend time with.

This season’s forays in the UK are now all fully booked and have proven to be so popular we have a waiting list. At this time of year we spend an equal amount of time in West Sweden where we pick the mushrooms we dry to sell, and take people out on forays there too. We often invite British forayers to come and pick with us in beautiful Bohuslän, and this year one of our Swedish guests expressed a desire to come over to our UK base near Manchester. We do like to do our bit for mushroom tourism between the UK and Scandinavia! There are still places available on our two forays on the lovely island of Orust, just north of Gothenburg, this coming weekend, 3 and 4 October. We’re enjoying a fantastic Brit summer as they say here, with temperatures in the late teens, so it’s a great time to visit this beautiful part of the world. Happy foraging everyone!

We had a wonderful evening last week at the Great Taste Awards gala dinner. Not only did we get to taste a veritable feast of food and drink with ingredients provided by many of the Top 50 winners – including porcini arancini made with our mushrooms – but we managed to bag the Golden Fork prize for Best Ambient Product of the Year. We are of course utterly delighted and incredibly proud that one of our varieties of dried wild mushroom has received such a high accolade in the world of fine food. We’ve both just about come back down to earth and are looking forward to the new partnerships the award might help us forge, as well as this autumn’s forays, and happy days back out in the forests of West Sweden picking next year’s stock.

We’re delighted to share this 60 second review of our dried wild porcini from Sweden made by the Great Taste Award Top 50 team. Food writer Joanna Blythman explains just what impressed her about them, including the refinement of the product, the silky texture and umami flavour. We’re rigorous about standards and quality – for instance we make sure there’s no grit on the mushrooms – and always dry our mushrooms on the same day we pick them to maximise aroma and intensity of flavour, and that clearly pays off. We give our wild mushrooms the treatment they deserve and add nothing other than TLC!

If you want to come out in the woods and fields with us this autumn to learn a bit more about wild mushrooms there are still some places left on our popular Funghi Forays with lunch al fresco in Derbyshire’s beautiful Peak District.

Sunday 13 September – now fully booked

Saturday 19 September

Sunday 18 October

Saturday 24 October

Price:

Adults: £40

Children aged 7 – 12: £20

The price is for a half day event, meeting at 10.15 for a 10.30 start and lasting approximately 4 hours, including all food and drinks for the lunch al fresco.

To book use the contact form on the website or email info@getfunghi.co.uk.

As if yesterday’s fantastic news wasn’t enough, we are absolutely over the moon to hear that our porcini mushrooms have also been chosen to be amongst the Top 50 products out of a grand total of 10 000 entries!

You’ll be able to read more about our “woodland treasure”, now classed as a ‘store cupboard essential’ by the Guild of Fine Food – and the 49 other amazing products chosen by them – here.

What an exciting day! We can now finally reveal that our porcini mushrooms have won 3 stars – the highest accolade – in the prestigious Great Taste Awards. We are so extremely happy and proud that a product that we pick with love and dry with care has been recognised as being of the highest quality it can achieve.

Here are just some of the judges comments: ” Very beautiful slices. Gorgeous clear, clean, bright soaking liquor. Gently and simply cooked they have remarkable, gentle yet distinctive fungal flavour. Truly amazing.”

“Fabulous – the combination of delicacy with such a subtle degree of pungency is truly wonderful. A lovely taste of forest floor with none of the murky mustiness of many dried porcini.”

“Stunning flavour, perfectly intense.”

We are so lucky to be able to spend time in the forests of beautiful West Sweden, Bengt’s homeland, and then come back to lovely north Derbyshire where we pack and distribute to some of the nicest delis and shop owners in the North West and the UK! Many thanks again to Karl Sinfield for his great eye catching label designs.

Now we’re looking forward to going to Sweden next week, for a well earned holiday interspersed with lots of mushroom picking. It is the start of the new season after all! Then there are funghi forays coming up in the autumn, more picking, and a few tastings planned…..

Thanks to everyone who sells or buys our dried wild mushrooms, and all the mushroom lovers that come on our forays, for all your support and enthusiasm. We truly love what we do!

If you don’t happen to live near any of our stockists and are wondering how you can get your hands on our delicious wild mushrooms from Sweden then wonder no more – you can buy them direct from our London stockist Scandinavian Kitchen. They have a fantastic online shop packed with lots of other Scandinavian goodies to try as well, and ship all over the UK mainland. The link above will take you directly to their website.

In stock at the moment are Winter Chanterelle, Porcini and Forest Mix. Many thanks to Tim Hensel Photography for our swish new product photos.

We’ll shortly be travelling ‘home’ to lovely West Sweden for holiday/mushroom picking – can’t wait to see what this year’s season will be like. Here’s a photo from last year, when there were so many top quality porcini and ceps we were tripping over them!