Baked Asparagus and Avocado Mousse Stuffed Morels

Spring can be a very profitable time for the professional forager. Seasonal favorites like morel mushrooms fetch a high price, these professionals are lining their pockets with money and stomachs with the coveted mushrooms. But what about the rest of us? Sometimes amateurs such as myself only manage to get a handful of morels, why not turn the morels into single yet delicious bites like an amuse bouche and get more distance out of a limited amount of an ingredient? Taking inspiration from the asparagus shooting out of my garden bed, I wanted to create a bite size representation of the Spring, which I generally associate with savory, grassy, citrusy, and sweet flavors and luckily morels make interesting and delicious vehicle for the mousse.

Granted amuse-bouche, which is simply a single bite hors d'oeuvre, is significantly more common in fine dining restaurants than the average home party, these stuffed mushrooms also work well as an appetizer if that is more stylistically appealing.

The filling in this dish is a mousse, which is most commonly associated as a cold dessert, but can be either sweet or savory, cold or warm. The defining feature of a mousse is that it is a foam, which means by mechanical, chemical, or biological means gas is incorporated into the food, which ends up giving it a lighter texture. Yeast bread, whipped cream, or meringues are all foams.

Today's article is formatted slightly differently than usual, the reason for this is that acquiring the morels is by far the most difficult part of this recipe, you might be able to buy morels at your farmers market or a whole food grocery store, but I wanted to provide a few resources to encourage getting out into the woods and looking yourself. The techniques involved in mushroom huntings cannot be given justice by a paragraph summary.

Morel Hunting Information
A Morel Sighting Map

Mother Earth New's Morel Hunting Guide

MO Department of Conservation False Morels

Baked Asparagus and Avocado Mousse Stuffed Morels

Ingredients

• 1/4 pound Asparagus
• 1/2 Avocado
• 10 Morels
• 3/4 c Heavy cream
• 1 Large egg
• 1 Egg yolk
• 1/2 Shallot
• pinch of salt and pepper

Cooking Directions

1. In a pan with butter saute asparagus and shallot over medium heat.
2. Add pan contents to a food processor and puree with avocado and cream.
3. Add egg, egg yolk, and seasoning to the food processor,
4. Cut morels in half and fill with mousse.
5. Bake for 15 minutes at 375 F.

Total Time: 30 min