Eric

I must have been eating some of those 'special' mushrooms!

Actually, something's gone wrong in the cut & pasting of some punctuation. Let's try again:

Stuffed Puffball
This is one of the most spectacular and satisfying wild food recipes I have ever cooked. The fungal flavours in the finished dish are intense, to say the least; it's not for the fainthearted. But true fungophiles will appreciate it. The stuffing was based simply on the 'catch of the day' when I went out foraging with my Bridport friends, Nick and Paddy. It's a flexible affair, and you could use whatever combination of wild meat and wild mushrooms comes your way. Buttered steamed young comfrey leaves make a good accompaniment.

Ingredients:

Serves 2-10 (depending on foraging success)

1 large puffball (20-40cm in diameter)(8-16ins)
oil for frying
about a dozen wild garlic roots (or shallots), finely chopped
breast meat from 1 pigeon (or more, as available), chopped
about 500g chicken of the woods mushrooms (discard any woody bits, then chop roughly)
a slosh of wine
a few horse or field mushrooms, chopped
parsley, sage, thyme, finely chopped
a few potatoes, parboiled and roughly chopped
a knob of soft butter
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Cut the top off the puffball and remove carefully; this will be your lid. Hollow out the interior of the puffball, leaving the sides and base at least 5cm thick (any thinner and they may collapse during baking). Roughly chop the flesh that you have removed from the puffball.
Heat some oil in a large pan, add the wild garlic and sweat for a couple of minutes, then add the pigeon meat. Cook for a couple of minutes, until browned, then add the chicken of the woods. Add a sprinkling of salt at this stage to help draw the water from this fungus. If the mixture begins to look dry and is catching on the bottom of the pan, add a little water and a slosh of wine. Simmer gently until the liquid is nearly absorbed, then transfer to a large mixing bowl. Return the empty pan to the heat and add a little more oil. Throw in the chopped puffball flesh, along with any other mushrooms you have gathered, and stir-fry for a few minutes, until much reduced in volume. Add to the rest of the mixture, along with the herbs and chopped potatoes. Mix everything together well and season to taste with salt and pepper.
Fill the puffball with the mixture and replace the lid. Smear the top and sides of the puffball with the soft butter and wrap completely in foil. Bake in a fairly hot oven (190degC/Gas Mark 5) for 2 hours.
To serve, unwrap the puffball, remove the lid and spoon out the filling. Serve with pieces of the lid, sliced; further slices of puffball can be taken horizontally, as the level of the filling descends.