It has a good strong somewhat meaty flavor and a pleasantly firm texture. The little hairs/scales wilt into the rest when the heat hits them and are not really distinguishable. The stem is really tough and fibrous, so I discarded it, and merely sliced up and fried the cap. Recommend harvesting ones that still have a whitish pore surface; if it’s turned black, they’ll be too old.

Cracking green russula and old man of the woods.

Beautiful dusty purple laccaria

Fascinating! Hmm, they remind me of deer mushrooms, I wonder if they taste similar?

Ah, like the smaller cracked-cap guys with the usually slender stem? I think I’ve seen a few of those, and never very large fruitings at once, either. Understandable.

I tried plugging what I could from your pictures into my bolete book and you may wish to consider Boletus nobilissimus or similar. I assume no bruising or staining anywhere, and you found it in mixed hardwoods.

I trimmed the stems until I saw no more bug tunneling, so they were really not too bad yet! Of course, with such numbers, at least SOME of them will be good…

Thanks! I was happy to come here and share it where people would appreciate their…unique charm!

Dang. I’m glad it at least didn’t make you sick!

Ahh, that’s unfortunate. I hope you get a chance to try some in better condition someday. Here, we mostly have L. sulphureus and L. cincinnatus, which are both choice edibles.

Delicious on top of garlic toast. Recipe courtesy Alan Bergo: https://foragerchef.com/sicilian-chicken-of-the-woods/#recipe

Involves tomato sauce, monarda fistulosa from my flowerbed, lots of onions and garlic.

I cut the recipe in half and harvested about half a pound.

Definitely give them a try! I was lucky, these two were actually my first time getting to try boletes. Porcini-types aren’t common in my area, and I tend to have an abundance of the really bitter Tylopilus, as well as the various red and yellow blue-bruising boletes that are tricky to ID. I’m looking forward to slowly learning and hopefully sampling more of them. Your red-footed boletes are Neoboletus?

Well, it was my first time trying the samples of black velvet bolete and Strobilomyces, so those were simply fried up and sampled one by one right away. The dryad’s saddle was fried with butter and herbs and frozen for later. The chicken of the woods was stewed in tomato sauce and served over toast a la Forager Chef’s recipe. The chanterelles are being fried with butter and frozen and given away to friends and family.

Well, this was my first time trying them. I’ve heard that some people find the taste poor, possibly depending on subspecies or substrate, but I have no complaints. I discarded the fibrous stalk and fried them up with herbs and butter. Meaty and delicious, with a surprising tangy note. I’d absolutely harvest them again.

I expected to find the chanterelles, but everything else was pure luck over a short three miles! Good luck out there.