Morel mushrooms are a delight! Many probably have never heard of them. For most folks all it takes is one bite and you'll want more! My hat is off to my good friend, Brian Peters of Dalton Ohio, as he is the one who got me hooked on Morels. Below is how I prepare Morel mushrooms.

What you will need:

Morel mushrooms, flour, salt and lightly salted butter (Cottage Creamery "AA" Lightly Salted Butter if available).

Once you have yourself a nice pile of Morels you will want to rinse them thoroughly in some cold water. Remove all dirt, snails, ants, bugs, etc.

Alternately, you can pretty much follow this same process with dehydrated Morels as well. They will soak up the salt water and plump right up.

Next step is to fill a bowl with cold water, put your morels in it and pour in some salt. A couple of good sized "handfuls" of salt will do nicely (not scientific). The purpose of salting is to kill all those little "no seem's" ;o)~ Place your salted Morels in a covered bowl in your refrigerator.  Let them soak for approx. 24 hours.

A shot of our Morels (a.k.a. "shrooms")  bathing in salted water. 

Remove the Morels from the bowl and slice them vertically as such. 

Rinse them good on the inside. Now that you have the inside of the Morel exposed you can ensure that you got all the dirt and bugs out. Make sure all the lovely little crevises are free of dirt and bugs too.

Flour the halved sections of your Morels.

Sometimes I use bread bags to dust my Morels before.  Sometimes I'll use a large Tupperware bowl with the lid on.  Give them a good dusting of flour.

Once your Morels are dusted with flour and ready to fry, slice about 1/2 stick of butter in little 1/4" slices scattered across the surface of your frying pan.

After your skillet is good and hot and the butter has melted, place your Morels in the skillet leaving just a bit of "breathing room" between each Morel.

Be prepared to add some small slivers of butter as you see it evaporating from the skillet. This keeps things frying instead of burning. Fry your Morels to a golden brown on one side then flip each section and repeat for the other side.

Once your Morels are fryed to your liking, place them on a plate covered with some paper towels to absorb the excess melted butter.

Sprinkle some salt over top of the fried Morels (salt to taste) and thank God that He has been kind enough to allow you to eat one of the best things on His green earth! ;o)~

Quando mangiamo?